New Devils boss almost gave up on coaching dream
Steve Larkin |
Ken Hinkley had given up.
He was sick and tired of pouring his heart into applications to coach AFL clubs, then being rejected.
Richmond in 2009. Geelong in 2010. St Kilda in 2011.
So in 2012, when Port Adelaide came calling, Hinkley – then an assistant coach at Gold Coast – didn’t want to answer.
His wife Donna got in his ear, saying he’d regret it for the rest of his life if he didn’t have another crack at being an AFL head coach.
At the time, Port was broken – on-field and off.
The Power’s hunt for a new coach in September 2012 was paused when popular player John McCarthy’s fell to his death from a Las Vegas casino rooftop on an end-of-season trip.
The club was being propped up by AFL funds to survive.
Massive tarpaulins covered empty sections of their home ground, Football Park, in a season when crowds averaged about 19,000 spectators.
Seemingly, no-one wanted to coach them: Chris Scott, Rodney Eade, Mick Malthouse, Paul Roos, Leon Cameron, Brett Ratten and others were on the wish-list. All didn’t want to apply.
Which left Hinkley.
“People have said ‘last man standing’ – I have heard those comments,” Hinkley said in his first media conference as Port coach, on October 8, 2012.
“Maybe I was the right man standing.”
Hinkley, a knockabout from Camperdown in Victoria’s south-west, played 132 games for Fitzroy and Geelong in an eye-catching career from 1987-95.
A brilliant, dashing defender, he was famous for telling teammates: “Mind my man – I’ll be back in three Brownlow votes”. (He finished third in the 1992 Brownlow medal, when making the All Australian team for a second successive season).
After retiring, Hinkley coached Victorian community clubs – Mortlake, Camperdown and Bell Park – before returning to the AFL as an assistant at Geelong (2004-09) and Gold Coast (2011-12).
Soon after getting the gig as Port coach, Hinkley saw an empty toilet paper roll on the floor of the clubroom toilets.
To Hinkley, it wasn’t rubbish. It was a sign of wider decay.
If the player responsible couldn’t be trusted to show respect to the cleaners, and the next person to use that toilet, how could they be trusted on-field in the heat of battle?
Hinkley summoned Port players, demanded to know the culprit, and ordered all to show utmost respect.
That message, and others, resonated: in 2013, his first season at the helm, the Power made the finals – winning one, losing the next.
In 2014, Port reached a preliminary final when beaten by just three points by eventual premiers Hawthorn.
Hinkley would coach the Power for 13 seasons for a winning percentage of 58.59 – better than Ron Barassi, Kevin Sheedy, Allan Jeans and David Parkin.
But those coaching legends all won premierships. Hinkley, who made the playoffs seven times, coached four losing preliminary finals.
In fact, he holds the record for most VFL/AFL games coached – 297 – without making a premiership decider.
Ever pragmatic, Hinkley said “didn’t make a grand final, didn’t win one” would be how his Port stint was remembered.
But now, the 59-year-old has another chance after being appointed as the inaugural coach of Tasmania, to enter the AFL in 2028.
“My passion is who I am, my emotion is who I am, that’s the way I coach – and it seems to be that most of the time that works out OK for me,” he told reporters in Hobart.
Hinkley officially starts in November on a five-year deal. After that, will he hand over to someone else?
“Not if we’re winning. Nah, I don’t hand over if we’re winning,” he grinned.
“If you come on the journey you go for the fun times as well.
“At what stage of life do you decide you have done enough, had enough? I’m miles away.”
AAP