Mark Robinson says Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley must stick to his guns against Richmond
Port coach Ken Hinkley has copped it for his team’s ‘terrorising’ tactics against Brisbane ball magnet Lachie Neale. But do it again against Richmond — just be better and more focused, Mark Robinson writes.
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The spotlight will be on Ken Hinkley when his half-tough, half-meek team confronts Richmond at the MCG today.
The Port Adelaide coach was lambasted during the week by former players for the tactics employed by him and his players against Brisbane’s Lachie Neale.
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Unsportsmanlike. Weak. Embarrassing. Stupid.
Different coaches have different personas. Hinkley’s an emotional coach. His team is the same at present. Up and down. Walloping and wimping. Winning and losing.
And Hinkley can’t be anything else except himself.
It is about convictions. Be true to yourself and by extension to others.
It’s why he must send Cam Sutcliffe to Dustin Martin or Trent Cotchin today. Just be better and more focused when “terrorising” them.
It’s no-brainer, say former coaches Kevin Sheedy and Rodney Eade.
Sheedy: “If you listen to every person in football, you end up in the greatest movie I’ve ever watched, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.’’
Eade: “Ken can’t go back into his shell, he can’t second-guess what people are going to think. Stuff that, it’s about trying to win. We use words like ‘ruthless’, ‘dog-eat-dog’, but it is. It’s cutthroat. If Ken sits back and thinks, ‘We can’t go after the opposition for the good of the game’ … nuh, they can’t compromise themselves.’’
Conviction off the field, or lack thereof, has been front and centre this week.
I don’t know if Carlton director Chris Judd convinced the football world when he claimed his comments about David Teague and “training wheels’’ were taken out of context.
Asked if caretaker coach David Teague was, in fact, on training wheels, Judd said: “He is getting some really good coaching experience now. He has in effect coached his own team, but that’s not really the same as being an actual senior coach of a football team with the pressure that comes with that.’’
It created a kerfuffle and Judd later admitted he needed to “improve my media performances’’.
Still, instead of trying to have all of us believe we we wrong and he was right — “Don’t p--- down my back and tell me it’s raining,” Denis Pagan would say — perhaps Juddy could’ve said he made a mistake and moved on.
It’s OK, everyone makes mistakes and that includes football directors who will be picking the next senior coach.
AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan also had his Denis Pagan moment this week.
Asked if the AFL should take any blame for the problems of the Gold Coast, particularly around its formation time, McLachlan baulked.
Come on, Gill.
The AFL put in place a virgin chairman, chief executive, coach and football manager — talk about being on training wheels — built them portables to work out of for seven years and if you read inaugural player Campbell Brown’s recent revelations about development, training facilities, strength and conditioning and medical staff, you could hardly say there weren’t major problems in the start-up.
More conviction and less buck passing from the boss was needed.
Anyway, he could’ve blamed Andrew Demetriou because it was on Demetriou’s watch.
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The Adams Goodes documentary, The Final Quarter, was confronting viewing and confronting for those in it.
Collingwood president Eddie McGuire featured prominently and negatively.
He said yesterday: “It’s very confronting and it’s heartbreaking to be involved in it in a negative way.
“What you have to do in these situations is you have to front up to things.’’
That includes watching it at his sons’ school, where he will conduct a Q&A session.
It’s not an apology for his stance and commentary at the time, but it’s a conviction that he is determined to part of the solution and not the problem.
At the MCG today, we’ll see whether Hinkley is a coach of conviction.
That he’s selected Sutcliffe again is an indication he plans to target someone, probably Martin, maybe Cotchin.
To be true to himself, Hinkley needs to double down on the aggression, albeit smarter.
More like when they beat Geelong in Round 14 and less like last week’s huff-and-puff performance against Brisbane.
Port believes it didn’t lose to the Lions because of the first 10 minutes, rather they were beaten at the contest early and they couldn’t play catch-up.
Sheedy said the media reaction from last Sunday’s “terrorising’’ of Neale was pathetic.
“If I could talk to Ken, I’d say ‘Kenny we had the best terrorists of all time and I’d do it every day’,’’ Sheedy said.
“Don’t listen to the media and the media shouldn’t bury coaches on a misadventure.
“The deal is annoy people, get them off their game, keep challenging the system because the system is not always right.
“Harassing a player is a bleep in the game, it’s nothing, you’ve still got 110 minutes to play.’’
The AFL great said coaches — in this case Hinkley — had to ignore external commentary.
“These people never, ever stop trying to bury guys who are very good coaches who haven’t won premierships.
“They don’t know what they’re talking about, they’ve never coached, they have no idea some of these former players.
“They sit on radio and talk on television and their make-up would melt if they had to coach.”
Eade, who coached Sydney, the Western Bulldogs and Gold Coast, said it was paramount a coach stayed true to himself.
“If you react to what people say, you’re going no where. You’ve got have your beliefs,’’ Eade said.
“It might’ve been the right thing to go after Lachie Neale, but they just went over the top.’’
Philosophically, he argued Hinkley was looking for a circuit breaker to stop the inconsistent performances.
“Was it a vehicle for the team, not so much about Lachie Neale, but to get the team into the game, to get them an edge?’’ Eade pondered.
“I reckon Ken was worried last week about the pattern of behaviour so, ‘I’ve got to try something different here’.
“I commend him for trying to break the cycle. This week, I’d try to unsettle Dusty Martin and maybe he will react.
“Neale didn’t and Brisbane played it smart, but Martin might react.’’
Originally published as Mark Robinson says Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley must stick to his guns against Richmond
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