In a week where the AFL admitted yet another umpiring error which screwed over the Crows, the city showed it never forgets.

As the football world prepares to flood into Adelaide en masse for Gather Round, even the AFL’s treatment of Ken Hinkley has had a unifying effect in a town split by club loyalties.

The $20,000 fine the AFL forced upon Hinkley for ‘conduct unbecoming’ remains an open festering wound even as the league uses his semi-final rematch with Jack Ginnivan as marketing gold.

And yet even former Adelaide players like 5AA sports identity Stephen Rowe believe the AFL’s treatment of Port Adelaide coach Hinkley was beyond the pale.

The ever-emotive Rowe was blunt about the AFL’s decision to fine Hinkley and turn his mocking ‘You’re not flying’ salute to Ginnivan last September into a full-blown cross-border incident.

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“What happens is that in other states there is a different set of rules to what happens in South Australia …. When it is the Crows or Port Adelaide, we always seem to get screwed over by the AFL,” he told this masthead.

“It was the perfect storm for Port Adelaide. It couldn’t have happened to a bigger pest than an ex-Collingwood player (Ginnivan) who is a smart arse going to a club like Hawthorn and being an even bigger smart arse and not getting a kick.

“It was magnificent theatre, a seasoned veteran having fun with a young lad (by) doing the wings taunt. Then the AFL slaps him with a $20,000 fine. Since then five players and five coaches have done things ten times worse and not got a fine.

“But the AFL didn’t roll the fine back. How hypocritical is that? And then in Gather Round the biggest game is Adelaide (v) Geelong but the second biggest game is Port Adelaide v Hawthorn.

Consider the stage set for Kenny v Ginny 2.0 on Sunday night, a rematch where Port Adelaide would normally be riding high as the semi-final victor.

Instead, Hinkley has everything to lose as Port Adelaide’s season hangs in the balance as his own coaching time-clock runs down.

Despite Hawthorn’s attempts to play down that rivalry this week – publicly and privately – make no mistake, they will be ready for whatever comes.

As a well-placed Hawks figure said of their approach: ”Don’t worry, they haven’t forgotten.”

The exchange between Hinkley and Sicily would almost have been comical if it wasn’t so serious.

The Herald Sun understands that Sicily took Hinkley’s sledge personally, repeatedly calling him a “smart f---ing ----”.

As he tried to hoist 300-gamer Luke Breust high as part of a Hawthorn salute, the veteran goalsneak nearly toppled over as a distracted Sicily’s exchange with Hinkley continued.

The mike-drop sledge from Sicily to Hinkley came as the final retort: “You have been a f***ing nowhere club for eight years”.

The question remains whether there is anything left smouldering from last September, or if it could be an anticlimax.

If it is left to Rowe, it could even end in high-farce, urging Port fans to mimic Hinkley’s flying motion from last season.

“Wouldn’t it be good if 45,000 Port Adelaide supporters made little paper planes from A4 paper and at the end of the game they flicked them out onto the ground,” he said.

BAD BLOOD

Port Adelaide and Hawthorn have never really liked one another.

Luke Hodge, who was highly critical of Hinkley’s post-game mocking of Ginnivan last year, said it even predates the Port Adelaide coach’s tenure, which started in 2013.

“There is a natural dislike between the two teams,” Hodge said this week. “I can guarantee you that there is a dislike between the two supporter bases and that builds the rivalry.”

Hodge said there was angst long before Ginnivan wrote ‘see u in 14 days’ on Brodie Grundy’s Instagram page just a few days before the Hawks-Port semi-final showdown.

“I remember early in my career (at Hawthorn) and Port Adelaide was bloody good through that 2002 to 2004 era and they used to give it to us,” he said.

“They were top of the ladder and they let us know.”

But he stressed the 2014 preliminary final – in Hinkley’s second year as coach – as a tipping point in the relationship.

“They (Port Adelaide) kicked 3.9 in the first quarter and they had their chances and played better footy, so they were pretty p—sed off with the result (a three-point Hawks win),” he said. “I have heard from players and (the) coach that they felt they were better than us that day. They felt they should have been playing in the grand final.”

Then came round 10 game last year when Hawthorn coughed up a 41-point lead almost 23 minutes into the third term as Port Adelaide stole the game with a Darcy Byrne-Jones goal at the 34-minute-mark.

Hinkley’s exuberance and fist-pumping on the boundary wasn’t forgotten by the Hawks, with Hodge saying: “By all accounts, there was a bit said on the bench.”

James Sicily (the day after the semi-final incident) and Sam Mitchell (on radio the next week), intimated that there had been some frustration coming out of that round 10 game.

But the Hawks this week stressed the frustration had far more to do with giving up four goals to nil in the final term, to lose by a point.

JACK AND KENNY SHOW

Five words keyed into Ginnivan’s phone – “see you in 14 days” – in response to an Instagram post from his former Collingwood teammate Grundy poured petrol onto the flames of what was already looming as an incendiary semi-final clash.

It sat there almost unnoticed for a period of time before it took off with a whoosh …

Across the border Hinkley was dealing with the pressure of a qualifying final thumping from Geelong and the prospect of another straight sets exit.

There was talk – denied then and again now by Port Adelaide – that a loss to Hawthorn might see him moved on, despite holding a contract for 2025.

If he was looking for straws to clutch, he had found one.

At a testy press conference in the middle of the week, ahead of a game that was going to see him equal Mark Williams as the longest serving Power coach, Hinkley hit back at suggestions his job would be decided by this one game.

“I’m not being a smart-arse here in any way shape or form, but I am contracted,” he batted away the barrage of questions.

Behind the scenes though, the wily coach was winding up his players about Ginnivan’s message, saying it was disrespectful to the team that stood between Hawthorn and a trip to Sydney to take on the Swans.

Jason Horne-Francis thought Ginnivan’s message was funny at first.

Then he changed his tune, telling 3AW the day after the semi-final: “Initially, when I saw it, I thought it was a bit of a laugh. (Then there was) a bit of anger as well, I guess ruling us out before we had even played.”

“It fuelled the flame a bit, not that we needed it after the Geelong game.”

In the lead-up, Hawthorn never formally addressed the message with Ginnivan. Instead, they wrapped their arms around him.

Their belief was that, as much as they would have preferred him not to be the story leading into the game, he hadn’t crossed any lines.

As someone close to the group said, young players don’t necessarily send messages on phone these days, it is through direct messaging on social media.

While this wasn’t a private message, the Hawks decided to put their collective arms around the young forward, almost sympathising with the fact that the attention he has got since almost his first game has been incommensurate with his position within the game.

Ginnivan had a few private chats with key members of the leadership group, but only of his own making.

Sicily did not feel the need to counsel him.

As Ginnivan said on the AusAmerican Aces podcast during the off-season: “I think it’s a bit of theatre … the only thing is I never want to upset the team … or put more pressure on the team. So even though I don’t care, it might have upset a few players and put more pressure on them. That was the only awkward thing, I guess, to put the team in that position.”

KEN’S MESSAGE TO GINNI

This was a tight and tense semi-final showdown even before the post-match sideshow.

Just a week after the Hawks canned a stunned Western Bulldogs with 29 scoring shots before almost 98,000 fans in an elimination final, Mitchell’s young side couldn’t score when they needed to against the Power.

No goals in the first term, then a scrap that saw them fight hard all through the game before a couple of near-misses left them short.

Having kicked a goal in the first half, Ginnivan nailed a second at the 17-minute-mark of the final term, which brought the margin back to within a goal.

He said of that moment: “There is a photo (after the goal) where I am just standing there and all the Port fans have got their fingers up.”

But narrow misses to Dylan Moore and James Sicily just before the final siren saw the home side hold on by three points.

As the two exhausted sides came off, preparing to line up for Luke Breust’s 300th game send-off, Hinkley couldn’t help himself.

He started motioning towards Ginnivan, and yelling out what the Fox Footy lip readers suggested was: “You’re not flying anywhere.”

A powder-keg of emotions needed one spark to tip it over.

Remarkably, Ginnivan kept his composure.

Sicily moved towards Hinkley. In another life the walking embodiment of white line fever might have done something he regretted.

Yet the Hawthorn captain showed his new brand of leadership by keeping those emotions in check.

He was held back by teammates Massimo D’Ambrosio and Jarman Impey, but as much as he let his temper fly through his sledges, he never attempted to get closer to the Power players.

He went to the line but never went over, expressing his displeasure at why a coach who has just advanced to a preliminary final would want to mouth off at a player less than half his age.

It was exactly the kind of leadership Sam Mitchell would have loved – back your teammates, don’t take a backwards step, don’t let your opponent walk all over you.

IN THE ROOMS

Mitchell and his players took part in a rare group hug in the rooms as they dealt with the pain of their extraordinary season being snuffed out in an instant.

As the coach said later: “The pain I felt and the pain I saw in their eyes was exactly like a mirror. I looked at all the faces and the red eyes and it was pain and disappointment and frustration and regret and pride … and it was all staring back at me.”

The pride was unmistakeable, given the club’s rise up the ladder, and the wild ride that HokBall had taken them on.

But there was some anger too.

D’Ambrosio told this masthead in quotes not published before.

James Worpel said on 3AW: “I don’t think it is a very good look for Ken and the Port Adelaide football club … we will definitely remember that.”

Horne-Francis took the opposite approach: “He obviously said to Jack that he wasn’t going anywhere … we were a bit aggravated during the week of what I guess Jack did, and Kenny was definitely not happy about it.”

PRESSERS

The tension was so thick that as Mitchell began speaking in the main press conference theatre, a handful of journalists gathered in the adjoining corridor to bear witness if there would be an icy meeting or confrontation between the coaches.

It was the kind of night where no one could rule out any possibility.

Mitchell allowed two questions, providing an insight into his thoughts, but pulled up on the third question, focusing on looking forward not back.

“I can only speak on my club’s behalf and if I think about how my club, the Hawthorn football club, dealt with the post-game,” he said.

“And the captain of my club stood up for him,” Mitchell said.

When asked if he would seek out Hinkley to discuss it further, he added: ‘Absolutely not’.”

Hinkley had already addressed the matter on Channel 7 before his press conference, but it wasn’t quite an apology.

He said: “Jack said what he said during the week … and I just told him after the game that he wasn’t going anywhere. You know I don’t know (about) social media … I just do what I do. I probably shouldn’t have done it … but reality was: ‘You throw something our way, we are going to throw something back occasionally.”

He was more contrite at his press conference, saying: “there was stuff said last week that I didn’t enjoy … but I shouldn’t have let that get to me.”

Sicily stoked the embers the next day when he said: “It’s not the first time Ken has done that and it won’t be the last … it’s an emotional game. Sometimes it gets the better of us. All the best to them for the rest of the finals, but I will always defend my teammates.”

Internally, Sicily’s handling of the matter further solidified why he had been made captain in the first place.

As for Ginnivan, he said: “To have your captain, Sic, as your biggest supporter has been amazing for me … he has your back.”

THE AFL INTERVENES

Hinkley copped the AFL wrath even before he and the Power lost to Sydney in the preliminary final.

He was handed a $20,000 fine, which privately infuriated the Power. Even the Hawks were understood to be surprised by the outcome.

As AFL Coaches Association chief executive Alistair Nicholson said this week, the inconsistencies from a case to case situation continue to surprise.

“Ken admitted his fault but the question from us to the AFL is ‘if you go to $20,000 fines and none of it is suspended, where are you going to go from there?’

“The only way is up and that is what is concerning from our end. Ken is a 10-year coach and he hasn’t had indiscretions every year.”

He stressed the pressure on senior coaches has never been greater, saying:

“Ken talked about it and he was frustrated at the time. But he decided to get on with it.”

“This is a bigger thing now with the media scrutiny and the camera around.

So, too, has Hawthorn, who have entered Gather Round with a 4-0 winning record, while the Power is floundering in Hinkley’s final season as coach.

The AFL fixturing department – and the marketing department – hadn’t forgotten though.

They added this semi-final rematch as the curtain call on the Gather Round 3.0, with Sicily joking: “I laughed at one of the comments earlier when it got scheduled that they should refund Kenny’s moment … after putting it in prime time. But I’m not sure that they will.”

But the Hawks skipper has faith in Ginnivan’s ability to overcome the attention this Sunday.

“Jack adds a bit of spice to the game … as a player that makes you a little bit accountable, so he better do well. I’m sure he will.”

The man himself said: “I didn’t really care that he (Hinkley) did what he did. Jeez, $20,000 … it wasn’t that bad.”

Asked if he had anything special planned for the rematch, he said: “I reckon I’ll keep that a secret.” Watch this space.