Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley said travelling players and staff were informed they’d be going into isolation while in the air
Port Adelaide’s players and staff who travelled to the Gold Coast have completed week one of two of their self-isolation. Coach Ken Hinkley said they found out while on the flight home.
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Port Adelaide’s players and staff who travelled to the Gold Coast for the round one win have been in self-isolation for a week.
Among that group is senior coach Ken Hinkley.
The Power mentor, speaking on Whateley on SEN on Monday morning, said the group was informed on the flight back from Queensland that they’d be put into two weeks of self-isolation.
“I think on Sunday after the game, we were flying back, there were some decisions being made,” he said.
“On the flight, we were told there was the probability we would be going into isolation for 14 days, albeit the SA borders closed on the Tuesday.
“As a team and a responsibility to our state, we certainly knew our responsibility was to go into isolation and to do our part.
“We got off the plane and we went to our homes and since then we’ve been in our homes.
“Some boys have had some exceptions to travel back to Victoria because their borders weren’t closed.
“I think 19 of the travelling party or emergencies are isolated in homes in South Australia.”
However, Hinkley said the self-isolation hasn’t hampered his ability to coach.
“What we do in this world, we use the technology we have available, I spoke with everyone of my players last week by phone and from a team review point of view, we sent one out to everyone of our players,” he said.
“It’s a real challenge, last time and the first week it seemed busy, there was plenty to be done and contact to be made.
“If you’re in this together and we are, we’ll still connect with each other, coaches, players.
“We need to be able to get through some of the challenges in front of us.”
Port Adelaide stood down 80 per cent of its workforce this week, and Hinkley said it was tough to see.
“It’s incredibly challenging but there’s so much going on in industries in Australia and the world,” he said.
“We’re not the whole part of it, we’re only one part of it.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty about it, no-one knows when it will end.
“There’s uncertainty about the money in the game.
“When you hear a soft cap is gonna drop by a third that means people are going to be lost out of the club altogether.”
Hinkley has been in the AFL as the coaching landscape has evolved, starting his tenure a part of a small team at St Kilda under his former Geelong coach Malcolm Blight.
“That (St Kilda) was two or three coaches,” he said.
“You move to the Geelong days where I was with ‘Bomber’ (Mark Thompson), that was an expanding coaching team, it was quickly up to six or seven.
“Nowadays its nine or tens and we’re creating jobs to help develop young people.
“We don’t just coach them in football, there’s welfare people, physical people, doctors and physios.”
The Port coach entered the 2020 season under immense pressure, with a ‘finals or bust’ tag firmly attached to him.
Yet, he’s still not concerned around his own predicament.
“It’s not something I want to speak too much time talking about in 2020,” he said.
“From my point of view it’s to help steer and create opportunities for our club to be successful in 2020.”
Originally published as Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley said travelling players and staff were informed they’d be going into isolation while in the air