Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley opens up ahead of 2020 season and leading the club in its 150th anniversary
In an exclusive one-on-one chat with The Advertiser, Ken Hinkley talks about everything from external pressure to connecting with players, Charlie Dixon and excitement for next year.
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For the first time in his Port Adelaide coaching tenure, Ken Hinkley invited the Power’s latest draftees to his house on the night they arrived in Adelaide.
Hinkley and his wife, Donna, put on steaks, snags and lamb chops for the youngsters, as well as Port recruiting manager Geoff Parker last month.
They shot the breeze and broke the ice.
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“It was the first time I’d done it and it felt really good,” Hinkley tells The Advertiser.
“It’s pretty important that the bloke who’s just picked you and the bloke that’s going to be helping you and guiding you – the two most important people you probably need to know initially – are here with you right now from the very start of this journey.
“I’ve got a very good butcher who looks after me and we put together a very good feed for them.
“Donna did a great job and they know how to eat.
“My young bloke Jordy is there and he’s 22 and he’s sitting there going ‘gee, these boys are five years younger than me, dad’.
“They’re 17 or 18-year-old boys coming away from home – two are from Adelaide and that works for them – but the others are from Western Australia and Victoria, and it must be a bit daunting.
“To put your arms around them early and let them know that it’s safe, it’s OK, there’ll be some moments, there’ll be some times, I lived that as a 17-year-old when I first played football.
“I moved from country Victoria (Camperdown) to Melbourne (to play for Fitzroy) and I hated it … and I spent time in and out of the competition.
“So I’ll always have compassion for people who are moving and doing something big and challenging as young people.”
Port captain Tom Jonas reckons Hinkley’s care for his players has been a constant since his move to Alberton at the end of 2012.
Hinkley calls it being “fully invested” in them as people.
“I’ve always made it known to the person immediately that I don’t just talk to you about your football and I don’t want you to just talk to me about being the coach – I want you to understand a little bit about me too,” he says.
“I 100 per cent know that if you haven’t got strong relationships, you haven’t got nothing, so that’s been me.
“There might be eight (players) who were here when I started, so I’ve got seven going on eight years with those people and they are incredibly strong (relationships).
“But the first-year boys I make a real point (in developing connections).”
Port brought seven new players into the club during the off-season – Geelong’s Wylie Buzza, 23, and six 18-year-olds.
Four were top-30 picks (Miles Bergman, Mitch Georgiades, Dylan Williams, Jackson Mead), making it seven in two years.
The Power also let AFL regulars Paddy Ryder (St Kilda), Sam Gray (Sydney) and Dougal Howard (St Kilda) join rival clubs.
Port has looked long-term since missing the 2018 finals, doubling down this off-season after finishing 10th with an 11-11 record, despite external pressure mounting on Hinkley.
Some coaches entering what could be the last year of their contracts might have bristled at the thought of rejuvenating the squad, instead of adding experience.
But Hinkley, who needs to make the finals to trigger an extension for 2021, says the club always comes first.
“I’ve never wavered from the fact we’re trying to win a premiership,” he says.
“We obviously made some decisions 18 months ago (traded Chad Wingard, Jared Polec, drafted three top-20 picks) that we thought we needed to do something different and we were never going to let any one person’s need get in front of the team.
“I’ve never done that, I won’t do that and it won’t worry me.”
Nor does the suggestion there is extra pressure on him and Port in 2020 because of its back-to-back absences from the finals.
“I don’t spend time thinking about that,” he says.
“I know every decision made around the football club is for the long-term future of the club.
“I’d love to be part of it for the long-term.
“I’m still having a great time doing what I do and I hope I keep getting to do it for a lot longer.
“If I lose my energy for it, it won’t matter if we do or don’t play finals or do or don’t win premierships, I’d be stopping, I’d be leaving, getting out the way, because the place needs energy.”
What does concern Hinkley is trying to address his side’s inconsistencies.
Last season it beat West Coast in Perth, Geelong at home and Essendon away, but lost to non-finalists Adelaide, Hawthorn, Fremantle and North Melbourne.
“There were some great moments and some disappointments,” Hinkley says.
“We would’ve loved to have won the whole thing … and we didn’t quite get to where we wanted to go.
“We gave ourselves a hell of a chance to be a part of it (finals) and we lost games we didn’t want to lose, but we won some absolute big games, and I think that’s what frustrates people.”
As much as Port has performed inconsistently, it has stuck to a similar formula in each of Hinkley’s seven years.
The Power have never won fewer than 10 minor-round games or more than 14 in that time and not finished higher than fourth or lower than 10th.
“We’ve been capable of being great on our day and in moments but the great teams are the ones who can do it for a full season,” Hinkley says.
“We’ve never been lower than 10th but we’ve been as high as fourth and I think there’s one other team in my time that’s never been lower than 10th, and that’s Geelong.
“I get we want to win premierships and we’re desperate to win premierships, but we’ve always given ourselves some sort of chance.
“It’s come the time to get through the chances and get to where we want to go.”
For that to happen, Hinkley says Port needs to improve its scoring power.
It kicked the ninth-most goals in the league last season and was the second-most inaccurate team, but registered a competition-high inside 50s during the minor round.
Unsurprisingly, Port drafted three attacking players last month – Bergman, Georgiades and Williams.
The club was also hopeful Mead’s kicking skills and the return of Charlie Dixon, Robbie Gray and Brad Ebert to full fitness could help that deficiency, as well as improvement from youngsters such as Connor Rozee, Zak Butters and Xavier Duursma.
“If you don’t score, you don’t win very often and we struggled to score,” Hinkley says.
“We’re trying to improve our conversion and if we do that, as well as stay strong defensively, we’ll give ourselves a great opportunity to move up the ladder.”
Hinkley believes improving the squad’s “connection” will have the same effect.
It was again a major focus of Port’s pre-season camp on the Sunshine Coast last week, as players and coaches built bonds in gruelling training sessions, casual chats, by sharing deeply personal experiences, playing paintball and over table-tennis.
Hinkley, Port’s “reigning table-tennis champion”, was upstaged by Williams, although the coach jokingly called the loss giving the 18-year-old “a growth opportunity”.
“(Group connection) is massive for us,” Hinkley says.
“The closer and tighter you can become, the better you can perform when you’re under real pressure.
“We’re getting really, really strong in that space.”
Cricket is another sport that Port has used to bring the team closer together.
Last summer Power players and staff, including former captain Travis Boak and assistant coach Nathan Bassett, entered a team representing Grange in the Adelaide Turf Cricket Association’s division three Twenty20 competition.
The side won the premiership.
Steering Port to an AFL flag remains Hinkley’s burning ambition.
Fans are desperate for success in the club’s 150th year next season and his job may depend on making the finals, even though the Power shapes as an outsider to feature in September.
But right now, Hinkley is relaxed.
He is feeling recharged by an 18-day end-of-season family holiday with Donna and their children on Hamilton Island, buoyed by the camp and excited, rather than daunted, by what lies ahead.
“If you’re a Port supporter looking at this list, you couldn’t not be excited by it,” he says.
“It’s the 150th year of the club and that alone gives you some great excitement.
“We’re in a pretty healthy spot, albeit I understand that our members and everyone that supports Port Adelaide would like to see some immediate reward.
“I have no doubt we’re on the right path to winning a premiership and that’s what will make them proud, make them all come and fill the oval.
“When you’ve got a footy club with as much history and a great past of success, we want to be part of our own success.
“We’ve surprised and we’ve disappointed and I’m pretty excited about surprising again.”
HINKLEY ON …
CHARLIE DIXON
“He’s going good – really good, which is pretty important for us. He’s fit. I was talking to him two nights ago for dinner and saying ‘Charlie, this time last year you hadn’t even had your operation in March yet’ and now he’s out there running, out there doing football. If he can stay fit and stay healthy, not just physically but mentally as well … that will be a great outcome for us because that will help Todd (Marshall), that will help other young blokes, that will help our conversion. Charlie gets challenged about what he can’t do but I like to live in the world of what he can do, which is bloody well compete and create passion and energy for his teammates.
BOOSTING DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
“It’s no secret we’ve got a bit younger and I’ve always been big in the belief that you’ve got to spend an enormous amount of time in developing what we call craft – the players’ ability to do little parts of their game. Geoff Morris is a fantastic person who was part of the club in the past and was at Hawthorn for a long period of time. Tyson (Goldsack) is from Collingwood, which has been a strong football club over the time. He’ll fill a role with our young, developing players at SANFL level and help them Monday to Friday.”
SAM GRAY
“I’m really proud of what Grub (Gray) has been able to do for us and do for himself as a Magpies player who got a chance and he’s gone on to make the most of that chance. I’m sure he’ll do really well in Sydney because he’s such a good team player. But we’re at a stage where we need to bring these players (small forwards) through and give them opportunities to play. We’re excited by what (Kane) Farrell might do, excited by some of the young people who’ve come into our football club can do and what some of the players who were knocking on the door last season can do.”
RUCK BATTLE
“Paddy (Ryder) was one of the coach’s favourites I’ve got to say. It’s hard when you’ve got to make those decisions but it’s also right. Paddy knows that and was totally aware of that. Pete Ladhams wants to come through, Sam Hayes wants to come through and we’ve got incredibly bright futures with both those two young rucks. Scotty is ready to lead the ruck division as he did for most of last year … and he needs to compete and play well every week or Ladhams or Hayes will take his spot. (As for playing two ruckmen), it’s easy to play (two) if they’re playing well.”
KEITH THOMAS RESIGNING
“We didn’t see it coming but his impact on the club could not be questioned. The football club is in such a better spot today than when I started at the end of 2012. To get where we are today, the things we’ve been able to achieve, the things he’s been brave enough to try and take on, I think he’s done an outstanding job. I think he’ll go down as being one of the people that saved Port Adelaide in some way. I’d love to make sure he has a great 2020 and reward him with some success.”
TOM JONAS AS SOLE CAPTAIN
“There’s no doubt Tom is the right person to lead the club on his own and wear the No. 1, get out this year and represent it well. Ollie (Wines) said to me if there’s one person that’s right and he would follow to the end of the Earth it’s TJ and he’ll be there to help and support, as he was this year. Titles are slightly different but as a club we understand there was a bigger picture here at play for us. You make decisions that are right for the whole club.”
Originally published as Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley opens up ahead of 2020 season and leading the club in its 150th anniversary