Port Adelaide chief executive Keith Thomas and coach Ken Hinkley will be at the Power for the club’s 150th year in 2020
Port Adelaide chief Keith Thomas backs under-fire Ken Hinkley as its next premiership coach, describing him as ‘outstanding’ and capable of ‘delivering a premiership model’ while confirming both would both be at the club for its 150th year.
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PORT Adelaide is backing coach Ken Hinkley to lead it to its next premiership.
And chief executive Keith Thomas wants to go along for the ride, ending speculation about his own future by guaranteeing he will stay at the Power for the club’s 150th anniversary next year.
While hometown rival Adelaide appears set for an off-season of big change, Thomas said Port wanted stability and was well placed to build its next premiership team, with Hinkley charged with becoming just the club’s second AFL premiership coach following Mark Williams in 2004.
Hinkley has faced some member and supporter backlash after making the finals just once in the past five years but Thomas said the board had backed him in to lead the team for an eighth consecutive season in 2020. And he said he wanted the popular players’ coach to at least see out his current contract, which has a trigger clause in 2021, should the team play finals next year.
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Thomas, who has been chief executive since midway through 2011, described Hinkley as an “outstanding’’ coach and the right man to lead an exciting crop of youngsters forward.
“Ken will be coaching in 2020, absolutely, and 2021, I believe,’’ he said. “He’s an outstanding coach, a great coach, an outstanding game day coach.
“Phil Walsh (former Crows’ coach and Power assistant), who we all revere, said that no-one sees the game as well as Ken, so that’s always been a part of it.
“He has great relationships with his players, they play for him, and we believe he can build us a premiership team.
“Can we foresee a Ken Hinkley run football program delivering a premiership model? Absolutely. I am comfortable we are on the right track here. I couldn’t be more confident going into 2020 with the agenda, playing group and coaching group that we have.’’
Describing 2019 as a “bit of a rollercoaster’’, Thomas said Port was significantly better placed to attack a season than it was at the end of 2018, despite winning one less game.
“We undertook a lot of change at the start of the year, really as a result of our disappointment of 2018,’’ Thomas said. “We changed the coaching group, the playing list a fair bit, our game plan.
“While we are disappointed we didn’t win enough games to play finals, where we think we could have been dangerous, we think we have made significant progress in some pretty key areas, including the development of young players.
“We believe we have this year seen the emergence of something quite special.’’
In a wide-ranging interview to close Port’s season after it finished its 2019 campaign with an 11-11 win-loss record after winning three of its last four games to finish 10th, Thomas said he was “absolutely locked in’’ for next year, despite talk that he wanted out after penning a strange letter to members last month that took much of the responsibility for the Power’s fall from grace.
“I’m really enthused and feel like there is a lot to do; there is a lot of upside available to us and we’ve got a really important year coming up, the 150th year for the club,’’ Thomas said. “Next year is a great opportunity for us to put the spotlight on the club.
“I don’t regret the letter — I might have brought a few more people into the loop before I sent it out — but I felt at the time that the conversation had become so one-dimensional about winning and losing and Ken’s future.
“The letter was really about a CEO taking responsibility for a relationship with our members, which I think is reasonable.’’
Earlier Port chairman David Koch said Hinkley was safe and was already focused on 2020.
“Ken has started 2020 today,’’ Koch said on FIVEaa.
“Obviously you can’t stand still in the AFL, there has got to be changes. There will be some changes to our list as there is every year.
“Our recruiters have been identifying areas we need to improve. There will be changes within the structure of the organisation as usual.
“We review at the end of every year, we review what we’ve done, we make changes,’’ he said.
While he maintained finals was a pass mark for the Power and any AFL club, Koch said when taking a broader view of the season he could see a lot of upside for Port Adelaide heading into their 150th anniversary celebrations next year.
“All in all we’re pretty well set up at the moment,’’ Koch said.
“It’s a real hollow feeling knowing you’re not going to be busy in September which annoys the hell out of me, but I look at us going into our 150th year knowing we’ve got some really great kids that we’ve blooded and put AFL game under their belts.
“There’s a lot to like about a list at the moment,’’ Koch said.