Port Adelaide needs to re-sign coach Ken Hinkley now, say former stars
Port Adelaide needs to bite the bullet and re-sign coach Ken Hinkley now, say former stars David King and Kane Cornes.
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Port Adelaide needs to bite the bullet and re-sign coach Ken Hinkley now, say former stars David King and Kane Cornes.
Needing to make the finals this season to trigger a clause in his contract to coach in 2021, Hinkley says his future is secondary to the world’s fight to stop the coronavirus spread.
But dual North Melbourne premiership player King and Power games record holder Cornes say he cannot be judged fairly this year because of the postponed season and what football might look like when it returns.
“How unfair and unreasonable is it to sack a coach or move a coach on at the end of this season, given they haven’t had a handle on their players for this interim period?,’’ King said.
“We’re going to come back to a season that’s largely unknown, we don’t know when we’re coming back, we don’t know how long we’re going to be back for, how many games we’re going to play, refining and finding a method of play is going to be difficult.
“It’s such a question mark season, I find it’s going to be incredibly unfair or unreasonable to move a coach on at the end of the season if that were to be the case.’’
Under Hinkley, Port has made the finals just once in the past five years.
But King – a Fox Footy analyst – said its recruiting in the past two years had left it in good shape for future success.
“They are on the improve, I think most people agree that this young list, and particularly the three stars (Connor Rozee, Zak Butters and Xavier Duursma) of a couple of drafts ago, are going to take this team back up the table,’’ he told SEN.
“The trigger that’s there (in Hinkley’s contract) is probably an ugly little cause now and I think sane minds should prevail and the club should say, ‘look, let’s take that off the table, we cannot assess your performance this year given all the question marks that hang over your head in 2020’.
“The real guillotine will come in 2021.’’
Cornes said the trigger clause in Hinkley’s contract “should be off now’’.
“It’s time to lock him in (for next year),’’ Cornes said.
“You can’t go into 2021 with uncertainty about a coach and running through a process of hiring a new coach.
“So come out now and lock in Ken Hinkley and give the club some certainty because if I’m a player in these uncertain times and I’ve lost a lot of assistant coaches (stood down) I want my coach locked in.’’
Hinkley has a solid 89-71 win-loss record since taking over as Port coach in 2013.
But after taking the club to the finals in his first two years in charge, the Power has tasted September action only once in the past five seasons, in 2017 when it finished seventh.
Hinkley said he was not concerned about his future at this stage of the year.
“I don’t have anything to add to that other than right now this is not about any person, it’s about the team, the club, the competition and about everyone else,” Hinkley said when quizzed on ABC Grandstand last week.
“We will do everything we can to get the season up and going and we’ll work damn hard to be as good as we can and the results will take care of things.’’