Inside Ken Hinkley’s famous speech and 2003 premiership with Bell Park 20 years on

Ken Hinkley led a local club to an unlikely premiership. And it wasn’t just his renowned speech that helped set up his AFL coaching career. We go inside the flag 20 years on.

Inside Bell Park’s 2003 premiership win.

It is the speech that follows Ken Hinkley wherever he goes.

The Port Adelaide coach said words to that effect himself when he appeared via video link at Bell Park’s 20-year celebration of the club’s Geelong Football League premiership win a fortnight ago, which Hinkley’s famous three-quarter-time speech has etched into footy folklore.

“He made a video himself for us which was pretty good, just reflecting himself and actually made a bit of a gibe about the speech that keeps coming back that he’s seen who knows how many times,” 2003 premiership captain Sam Talarico said.

“When it does get played between the boys that played we always send through the video and it makes you feel good again.”

The triumph for Hinkley’s Dragons over St Mary’s in the 2003 grand final replay helped him get into the position he is in today – something Hinkley recognises and is eternally grateful for.

Hinkley joined Geelong as an assistant coach under Mark Thompson the next year, before heading to Gold Coast in 2011 and then taking the top job at the Power in 2013.

“He made a phone call the following day (after the 20-year celebration) just to thank myself and the footy club for him getting the next job,” Talarico said.

“Obviously not to say that he wouldn’t have got a job in the AFL system but I think for us winning that flag was a stepping stone for him to go (to) the next stage, which obviously that was at the Cats as an assistant.”

But while outsiders would only know about Hinkley’s stint at Bell Park through that viral video, his contributions throughout his two year stint and his impact on those players underline why he has had such a long tenure at AFL level.

And when you look deeper, the address itself is so much more meaningful than just a grand final pump-up speech.

“When you look at it as a non-participant, it is just that moment of a bloke getting really excited and saying ‘don’t let them take it off us’,” then Dragons chairman of selectors Peter Burke said.

“But when you’re part of the process and the emotional build-up and the work that went into it, it was just massively powerful because it had so many messages and so many layers and way more complex than just someone having a 30-second spiel at the playing group at three-quarter-time in a grand final.”

Cats Steve Johnson and Ken Hinkley Bell Park footy training

HONEST FEEDBACK

Ken did things differently as a coach – and one unique feature had the rooms packed every home-and-away game.

After the final siren sounded each week, Hinkley would give each player an honest reflection of their performance that day – in front of the entire playing group and all the supporters.

It was a new form of post-match entertainment for the fans as Dragons supporters raced into the rooms after each game to hear what Hinkley had to say.

“The start of the year there might have been 20 people in the rooms and by round 10 there was 100, because supporters loved it,” Talarico recalls

While it was a somewhat daunting and players certainly didn’t want to play a bad game, the group looks back fondly on this feature of this coaching which held them accountable for their performance.

“He’d either tell you what you did right, what you did wrong, whether he thought you played well, whether you were the best player, if he thought you were terrible, you’d have the whole crowd of people inside those rooms,” Ross Dillon, who was best-on-ground in the 2003 grand final, said.

Ken Hinkley at Bell Park training tonight

FINALS RUN

Hinkley had an uncanny knack to turn a negative into a positive for his players.

The Dragons were looking far from premiership midway through the year but a strong finish to the season and a round 18 win saw them secure double chance in a relatively even finals race.

A banged-up Bell Park would go on to lose to St Mary’s for the third time that season in a semi-final before meeting them again on grand final day.

And when the final siren sounded at Kardinia Park, both teams were locked on the same score. It was a draw.

The Dragons faithful, players and staff were all gutted after the match. Thinking what could have been with free kicks that should have been paid, rushed behinds that could have gone through.

But not Hinkley. He knew there was a still a game get prepared for the following week.

‘We’re all just looking at each other going ‘what the f---‘,” Burke recalls.

“As we walked into the rooms, and the rooms was full of people in a depressed state, Ken just suddenly bursts into this massive positive energy ‘guys, this is absolutely exciting! We’ve got a grand final, we’re in a grand final next week, let’s get ready!’

“Everyone suddenly stood up and went, ‘s--- we’ve got a grand final to play, let’s get organised for that.’”

Ken Hinkley, Jimmy Bartel and Peter Burke at the club’s 60 year function. Picture: Michael Klein

MENTALLY TIRED?

Hinkley put a power of work into getting his tired and sore players through across the last two months of the season, but that went into overdrive for the grand final replay.

Kicking of the Sherrins was replaced with massages, and some players even received injections to get themselves right for the big game.

“It was so professional, it is probably what AFL clubs do now with recovery and getting the guys right. We had enough of training, at that stage we couldn’t do much more fitness wise and skillwise it was all about recovery and getting right for the following week,” Talarico said.

“When we had a catch-up a lot of guys saw I think we had four or five guys getting injections, but that’s part of finals football.”

As this was happening in the lead-up, St Mary’s Kent Butcher, who played for Collingwood during the 1990s, set tongues wagging when he questioned whether the Dragons could go again in an interview with the Geelong Advertiser.

“I think they (Bell Park) have played all of their cards, they’d be devastated right now. They threw everything at us and still didn’t win,’’ Butcher was quoted as saying in the paper.

“They will be mentally tired and they haven’t beaten us yet. I’m not sure they’ve got much left.’’

While talk about this swipe was rife among the playing group, Hinkley didn’t bring it up until it mattered most.

THE REPLAY

Led by Dillon, captain Talarico and coach Hinkley, the Dragons had got themselves to a comfortable lead at three-quarter-time.

St Mary’s had mown down Bell Park in their previous meetings that year, and Hinkley wasn’t going to let it happen again.

Hinkley closed his passionate three-quarter-time address with: “Remember most of all. What gives them the right to say Bell Park’s got nothing left! Who decided that Bell Park, they’ve got nothing to play for? Get stuffed we’ve got nothing to play for!”

The Dragons managed to hold on, winning their first premiership in 12 years by 19-points.

Was Hinkley referencing that comment from Butcher? Dillon thinks so.

Ross Dillon (right) was named best-on-ground.

“Kenny didn’t really mention much of it during the week, obviously the guys were kind of talking about it,” Dillon said.

“Kenny was obviously our leader so all that kind of stuff, you think back now it must have been planned because he was just saving it for when he needed it, or when it can be used at its best.”

Burke, who helped recruit Hinkley after his one-year stint at St Kilda as an assistant coach, said the speech is so special because of what came before it.

“The way Ken brought all of that together in that speech was just extraordinary. Who says we’ve not got the right to win this, ‘who says we’ve not got the right or we haven’t got the energy, we haven’t got the legspeed!’” Burke said.

“I love the bloke he is one of my good mates and every time I see that it makes me buzz inside – not necessarily because of the words but because of the emotion that he was showing to the players about how much he loved and cared for them.”

SAME OLD KEN

Talarico’s ears pricked up when he heard Port Adelaide player Domenic Cassisi speaking about Hinkley’s first pre-season at the club on SEN.

His mind instantly flashed back to their first pre-season under Hinkley in 2002, when the players were eager to impress the new coach in their first 3km time trial.

“Everyone wanted to run their best time,” Talarico said.

“Everyone ran and we pretty much got back and he said ‘you’ve got to go again and you’ve got to be within a minute’.

“And everyone did, but it’s a memory because I was listening to SEN and he’d done it his first night at Port Adelaide as well, exactly the same training drill.”

Clearly Hinkley took at least some of his country footy techniques to the big league.

Ken Hinkley in 2013. Picture: Getty Images

DRAGONS CONNECTION

The much-loved Hinkley still holds Bell Park close to his heart.

Whether it is tickets to games or just a phone call or a chat, Hinkley always has time for the figures involved in his tenure at the Dragons.

A group of them caught up with Hinkley when the Power was in town for their clash with Geelong, with the guys regaling the memories of 2003 and talking about the past and present for several hours.

A couple of weeks back, a hopeful Dillon cheekily asked Hinkley for grand finals tickets if the Power made the decider in their WhatsApp chat.

Because Dillon knows he is forever indebted to them.

“We would have all asked the question. I tell him a lot that the only reason he is there is because of us,” Dillon joked.

“Probably just me personally but I say it for the group. He wouldn’t have got the Geelong assistant coach job if he’d been runner up in the GFL premiership.”

But all jokes aside, the Dragons feel privileged that he was there at Hamlyn Park.

“He’s fantastic, he is the best coach I’ve ever had. He was hard and fair … you play another 14-15 years of senior footy but you don’t realise how lucky you were until you saw how other people did it,” Dillon said.

Originally published as Inside Ken Hinkley’s famous speech and 2003 premiership with Bell Park 20 years on