With Port’s 84-point drubbing at the hands of the Cats, Ken Hinkley is now coaching for his career
From the first bounce, the intent was clear. As the smoke cleared and Port Adelaide were handed an 84-point thrashing, now the head coach is once again in the crosshairs, writes Graham Cornes.
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Sometimes you can tell. From the very first bounce you can sense the intent. You can see the difference in commitment. The execution is cleaner. The spontaneous run is contagious. The umpires favour you. And the impossible shots on goal, somehow go through.
When Jeremy Cameron, running towards the northwest boundary, hooked the ball around his body for a freakish goal, you just knew it was going to be Geelong’s night.
Inexplicably, Port’s start was shaky. Two fumbles and a dropped mark showed an early weakness and Geelong pounced.
Maybe there is too much hype before the bounce at a Port Adelaide home game. Ironically there is no better pre-match atmosphere at an AFL match. The Welcome to Country and the national anthem had been emotional, but it reached another level when the crowd rose and sang that song, Never Tear Us Apart. Maybe the Port players thought the song and the home crowd were going to be enough. But it was Geelong who responded best to the hype. The Cats small forward Gryan Miers forecast it during the week when he said they were looking forward to playing on Adelaide Oval and soaking up the atmosphere. “I can’t wait to hear that Never Tear Us apart song and get ready for that game. It also pumps us up as well”, he said in a midweek press conference. The home ground is not always an advantage if it lulls you into a false sense of confidence.
From the first bounce, Geelong was cleaner and quicker. Coach Chris Scott had signalled his team’s intent. Pace and skill. When combined they are undisputed matchwinners. Geelong cut Port to pieces with its pace. No better example of this was Max Holmes in the third quarter. Taking the kick-off, he simply took off from the goalsquare, running and bouncing, ignoring the frantic efforts of Francis Evans to chase him down. With sheer impertinence he carried the ball over 60 metres. But pace is not enough. The ball has to be delivered accurately and Geelong gave the hesitant Port players a masterclass in execution.
It starts in the centre. It always starts in the centre. So why were two of Port’s best midfielders not in the centre square for the first three bounces? Why was Jason Horne-Francis, Port’s best clearance player, sitting on the bench watching helplessly as Geelong ran rampant for those first five minutes. Where was captain Connor Rozee, another great clearance player?
Why was he not in the centre square for those first three bounces? Ken Hinkley cannot escape those questions. Nor can he escape the gloating of his critics, those hypocrites who claim to be Port faithful but secretly wish for the team’s failure so that they can pour their vitriol upon him. Those of us outside the club can view it with much clearer vision.
In the lead-up to this match, Port Adelaide was the overwhelming favourite among the footy “experts”. Hindsight and the ultimate result tell us how incorrect those predictions were.
How can a team that was an overwhelming favourite lose a qualifying final at home by 84 points? Yet, from the first bounce until halftime at least, this was a superb contest of high-pressure finals football. It wasn’t that Port was bad, it’s just that Geelong was superb. The contest was fierce and Port was not lacking in endeavour (for the first two quarters at least), but Geelong was cleaner with disposal.
Coach Chris Scott planned it well. Despite missing key players and losing all-Australian Tom Stewart before the match, he planned Port’s demise and selected a team to execute that plan. It was all about winning possession and using the ball effectively. It’s not rocket science and the Geelong players executed the plan brilliantly. They had 80 more disposals and protected the ball with 75 more uncontested possessions. The Geelong players disposal efficiency was 76 per cent, an astonishing figure for such a high-pressure match. They ran to create options, they ran to create space and they ran to support a teammate. Under Chris Scott the Cats have not always been a team that takes the game on with risk, run and carry but Thursday night was a great example of attacking football. Then it was Geelong’s use of the ball in its forward lines that devastated Port Adelaide.
The Geelong forwards had a field day. There is no better player in the game than Jeremy Cameron and Port had no obvious match-up for him. The task fell to Aliir Aliir but his real strength is intercept marking and Port missed that. Port’s two best rebounding defenders Dan Houston and Kane Farrell did not play and that robbed Port of attacking drive and precision. It also released the Geelong forwards of significant defensive responsibility. Additionally, moving Darcy Byrne-Jones back into defence deprived Port of its most important defensive forward. At the other end of the ground, when the ball got down there, Port was sadly lacking in talent and opportunity. Only Mitch Georgiades looked threatening.
He was the only Port forward to record more than 8 disposals. You can’t win finals without a talented forward line.
The third quarter of a football match is often called the “premiership quarter”, indicating that’s when most games are won. However, there is another period of the game where the psychology of the game impacts. The second half of the second quarter is a crucial time. So often teams hit the front or lead comfortably half way through the second quarter then subconsciously relax. Maybe Geelong kept them in the game with poor kicking for goal but Port hit the front at the 11th mark of the second quarter.
Whether they switched off or Geelong lifted is debatable but the Power kicked only one goal for the rest of the game. The crowd streaming out at three-quarter time told the sorry tale. “I’ve never left a Port game before the end,” one disappointed lady said to me on the way out. (I was leaving too.) At least she didn’t criticise Ken.
The pressure has never been greater on Ken Hinkley. It’s obvious now that over the next three weeks he will be coaching for his future at Alberton.
There are those who think Ken Hinkley is a genius to have taken Port Adelaide to second position at the end of the minor such is the list he has to work with. Others who are mired in the glory years of Fos Williams, John Cahill, the Creed and a meaningless mantra of “we exist to win premierships” (as if other clubs don’t) will continue to hound and criticise him.
As much as he would try to insulate himself from the criticism, Hinkley can’t help but hear it. It shouldn’t be the case but he would know the only way to silence those voices is to win through to a grand final.
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