AFL news: Does Ken Hinkley have a future at Alberton beyond 2023?

Ken Hinkley sits in the unenviable position as Port Adelaide’s longest serving coach without a premiership. With the final year of his contract coming up in 2023, what does his future entail?

An ex-coach sacked despite making the finals says Ken Hinkley needs to ensure he knows before next season how he earns a new contract at Port Adelaide.

Stan Alves, who led St Kilda to the 1997 grand final only to be dumped after a straight-sets major-round exit the next year, told News Corp Hinkley must find out what the Power board’s expectations were of him for 2023 so he could get clarity for the last season of his deal.

Port Adelaide and Hinkley will be under immense scrutiny after finishing 11th with a 10-12 record this past campaign, a sharp drop from consecutive preliminary finals.

Hinkley has a 131-92 overall win-loss record since joining the Power in October 2012.

Alves said from an outsider’s perspective, the 56-year-old could have to win a final to secure his position for 2024.

But he said Hinkley’s future would ultimately be determined by Port Adelaide’s internal goals.

After consecutive preliminary finals, Hinkley’s side finished 11th in 2022 after starting the season 0-5. (Photo by Mark Brake/Getty Images)

“I might be comfortable from the outside with saying ‘if you’ve finished sixth or seventh and perhaps win a final, you’ve done well’,” Alves, who coached St Kilda from 1994-98 and captained Melbourne from 1973-76.

“But then the question mark is, would this satisfy the board?

“They may say ‘that’s not good enough because we’re just lowering Port Adelaide’s expectations – we want more, we won’t stand for it’.

“If I was him, I’d be sitting down with the board and going ‘what’s our aim, our mark, our pass?’

“You’ve got to get that because the truth of the matter is if you don’t, you’re not too sure what’s required and the people that would be putting you under pressure, they’ve also got an escape clause.

“A very, very successful coach spoke to me at the end of my career and said ‘one of the most important things for longevity in a coach is not your win-loss ratio, it’s the fact you need to be the consummate politician’.

“I asked him why and he said ‘because whenever there’s a spill, you’ve got the numbers’.

“It’s very important you’re in the loop with the people above … it doesn’t guarantee you’re going to get in there, but you’re not flying blindly.”

So what does Hinkley need to do to receive an extension?

Stan Alves was sacked in 1998 despite making a semi-final with St Kilda that year. House. f/l /Football

Port Adelaide chief executive Matthew Richardson would not be drawn on that question, telling News Corp “all of that really is a hypothetical”.

Richardson confirmed there had been no extension talks yet but said that there had not needed to be.

“What we’ve got to focus on is what we can control,” Richardson said.

“We’ve got to get away to a really good start, we think we’ve got a list that’s capable of competing again at the pointy end and we’ve got to do everything we can to give ourselves that best chance.

“That (contract) will take care of itself.

“You can come up with hypotheticals and this and that, that’s not really what we do.

“We’re all on this with great belief in our programs and our people, and we’re really confident that we can bounce in ‘23.”

Hinkley was in a similar position three years ago.

He entered the 2020 season under the pump after back-to-back campaigns without making the finals then responded with a career-best season.

Port focused on connection and gratitude as Covid took hold across the competition, going on to claim the minor premiership and make a home preliminary final.

The six-point loss to eventual premier Richmond could have gone either way.

Ken Hinkley after the loss to Richmond in the 2020 finals series. Picture: Sarah Reed

Twelve months later, Hinkley steered Port Adelaide to the same stage and it produced a preliminary final shocker, falling to the Western Bulldogs at home by 71 points.

The Power said all the right things last summer, including Hinkley insisting “we’re still here”, but the club started 0-5 this year and it was too big a mountain to climb to make the finals.

Alves said the opening month next season would probably go a long way to deciding Hinkley’s fate.

“If you get away to a good start and play some good footy, that’s well and good, but if that doesn’t happen, everyone will be after him,” he said.

“The pressure comes on everybody and though we never believe this, self-preservation will come in.

“Little things come in that can tear away the fabric.

“But if you can be 4-1 … you’re away, the pressure will go off and you can start to play some really good footy.

“You’d hate to think it would be a carbon copy of what happened this year.”

Hinkley will start the season 50 games behind the Power’s only top-level premiership mentor, Mark Williams, for most AFL matches coached at the club.

Williams was in the role from 1999-2010 for a 150-121 record (55.31 per cent).

Hinkley’s winning ratio of 58.74 per cent has him ahead of several long-serving contemporaries, including Richmond’s Damien Hardwick (57.07), West Coast’s Adam Simpson (57.39) and the Bulldogs’ Luke Beveridge (56.83).

But that trio has what Hinkley, the Power and its fans are craving – flags.

At a club whose mantra is “we exist to win premierships”, 18 seasons without one is an eternity, as well as being the longest span in Port Adelaide’s 152-year history.

Port Adelaide’s AFL coaches: Mark Williams, John Cahill, Ken Hinkley and Matthew Primus. Picture: Sarah Reed

Being in charge for a decade and not winning a flag, let alone making a grand final, is unheard of at Alberton.

Before Hinkley, the longest Port Adelaide had given a coach who had not led it to the ultimate success was five years.

Russell Ebert was at the helm of the Magpies from 1983-87, before they controversially sacked the club legend when John Cahill returned.

Ex-Fitzroy and Essendon mentor Bill Stephen (258) and former Western Bulldogs and Richmond boss Terry Wallace (247) are the only two coaches in VFL/AFL history to have overseen more games than Hinkley (223) and not led their teams to a premiership decider.

Alves said Hinkley had impressed him from afar.

“In the pressure cooker of the AFL, where coaches are under so much scrutiny, I like the way he handles himself and when I look at his overall record it’s pretty good,” he said.

“But one of the great challenges must be coaching Port Adelaide because their expectations are so great.

“They demand success, it’s in their DNA.”

Seven-time Port Adelaide premiership player and former Power board member George Fiacchi said the club’s supporters were waiting for a flag.

“We’ve recruited very well again and we’re looking to rebound,” Fiacchi said.

“I look forward to the year and hope to go better than last year.”

No Port Adelaide coach had lasted more than five years without winning a premiership prior to Hinkley’s tenure. (Photo by Mark Brake/Getty Images)

Fiacchi, who joined the board in December 2012, two months after Hinkley’s appointment, said the club had committed to the coach so fans should get behind him and the team.

“There’s a famous saying at Port Adelaide: players win the ball, teams win games and clubs win premierships,” he said.

“The whole club needs to get its act together so we can win a premiership.”

Port Adelaide great Cahill did not want to comment on Hinkley, but said from his personal experience, coaches were usually past their best as they approached a decade in the job.

“As a coach, you get a feeling and my gut feeling is after about eight years your time is just about up,” said Cahill, who steered Port Adelaide to 10 premierships across three stints and finished lower than third just once in 19 seasons at the club.

“Your message is not sinking through.

“I’m not analysing any particular person, I just feel that after eight years as a coach … you’ve just about run your race if you haven’t had the success.

“The chairmen we had over years that by the end of the time, they were just about sick of me after eight years and probably the same with the members.”

Cahill said no matter the era, Port Adelaide fans had always expected results.

“If they don’t get it, it’s the coach’s fault,” he said.

Alves is proof that sacking one who has brought a period of stability can cause unrest.

After dumping him on the back of the 1998 semi-final loss to Melbourne, St Kilda had three coaches in the next three years while finishing between 10th and bottom.

But clubs would also look at Craig McRae’s debut season at Collingwood as an example of how replacing a long-serving coach – in that case Nathan Buckley – could spark a turnaround.

Coming off a 17th-placed finish, the Magpies made a preliminary final in 2022 under McRae, playing a much more attacking style.

“If I was asked about Collingwood last year, I probably would’ve questioned their list, but it’s an amazing situation when the group of players comes on board and buys into what the coach wants,” Alves said.

First time senior coach Craig Macrae steered his side from 17th to the top four in his first season, changing the team’s playing style. Photo by Michael Klein

“That’s what Ken needs, massive buy-in from the most experienced down to the younger kids.

“Then it’s ‘do we have the game plan to match it with these top sides?’

“They’ve got an exciting young list, but they’ve still got to take the next step.”

The AFL’s latest coach axing will provide another lesson for clubs.

St Kilda sacked Brett Ratten in mid-October, just 97 days after re-signing him for two years.

On July 8, the Saints trumpeted his reappointment on a press release titled “He’s our man” when the club was ninth with a 9-6 record.

They proceeded to lose five of their remaining seven games and miss the top eight by one win.

It prompted the backflip to change senior coaches and showed the risk in extending them mid-season.

The problem is, if a coach in the last year of their deal is unsigned midway through the campaign, it becomes a distraction because of the constant speculation.

Hinkley was miffed at a lot of innuendo around him this past season as the North Melbourne, Essendon and GWS jobs became available.

Alves said if Hinkley remained unsigned in the middle of 2023 “then we’re really going to be looking at his win-loss ratio”.

“The big challenge is also going to be how’s he gone against the Geelongs, Sydneys and Brisbanes,” he said.

“He’s got to be in a situation where his team is giving hope and value to the board, the sponsors and also the patrons of the club, the members.”

Hinkley will enter the new season under as much pressure as any coach in the league.

Former Power star and board member George Fiacchi says the club and fans need to get behind Hinkley and his team. (Keryn Stevens/AAP)

The Power made a wise decision to back him for next year despite outside noise it should part ways and chairman David Koch’s “turn it around or watch out” warning to the team.

Hinkley and the club could not afford another down season.

Some sections of the Power fan base reckon he needs to make a preliminary final to be there in 2024.

Asked if he expected Hinkley to be in the role beyond next year, Richardson said “that will take care of itself”.

“Our job is to put all the support around Ken, the football program and playing group to give ourselves the best chance of getting away to a really good start,” he said.

“We know we didn’t perform to expectations and were a long way from it in 2022, we’re focused on making sure, in 2023, we rectify that.

“We think we’ve got a list that’s capable now of competing for premierships.”

The last coach to make the finals and get sacked was Grant Thomas from St Kilda at the end of 2006.

Before that, it was Alves at the Saints eight years earlier.

Hinkley is popular with his players, has remained loyal, has steered the Power to three preliminary finals and helped turn it from a battler to a perennial top-eight contender.

But you wonder if he may be the next in that aforementioned group if he does not at least win a final.

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Originally published as AFL news: Does Ken Hinkley have a future at Alberton beyond 2023?