Port Adelaide fans have “no gratitude” for Ken Hinkley, according to respected commentator Gerard Whateley, but he maintains the under-fire coach will be gone if they miss the finals.
Hinkley’s disappointing Power outfit fell hopelessly to Brisbane last Saturday, representing the club’s third consecutive loss — by an average margin of 46 points — and third-straight home defeat.
Port Adelaide still has a winning record at 8-6, but it is just half a game inside the top eight as a host of hungry sides chase from below.
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As he and his coaching staff exited Adelaide Oval after the Power’s 79-point loss on Saturday, Hinkley copped a barrage of boos from the crowd.
“When a crowd turns on its coach like the Port Adelaide people did, it’s just a nasty way to treat a good and loyal man,” Whateley said on Fox Footy’s AFL 360.
Co-host and Herald Sun chief football journalist Robinson acknowledged the Power’s coaching failures but put the heat squarely on the Port Adelaide playing group.
“It’s ugly, we don’t see that often in football,” he said. “That’s why it’s generated such headlines around the country. We haven’t seen that for a long, long time.
“There’s an expectation you compete, and when you don’t compete to a point where you get annihilated on the ground, you get booed off and it’s like a party’s had a really ugly end — and that was what (happened on) Saturday.
“So, who takes responsibility? Is it Ken Hinkley? Is it Josh Carr in the box? Is it collectively the coaches’ box? Yes, it is.
“But the critical piece in all of it, Gerard, is the players. It always is. They decide how they want to play. They are guided by the coach, and he’s been a great guider, a great, wonderful person.
“Those players showed no respect to the 20-year anniversary premiership team, they showed no respect to each other, no respect for Ken Hinkley, and no respect for the fans.”
Robinson said it was the players who should have been booed post-game, not Hinkley.
“Ken Hinkley shouldn’t have been booed off the ground on the weekend, the players should have been booed off the ground on the weekend,” Robinson declared.
“There is a bad vibe about Kenny, there’s no mistaking it — 12 years, maybe the time is up, maybe it is. But the players must take responsibility — they must.
“(It’s a) big three weeks for the players, (but a) big three weeks, more so, for Ken Hinkley.”
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An impassioned Whateley went to bat for the 57-year-old, irked by the lack of appreciation from some for what Hinkley has delivered in 12 years at Alberton.
“It unleashed that core within the Port Adelaide constituency that has wanted Kenny’s head on a stake for years now, and it seems like they’ll be relentless until they get it,” Whateley said.
“The point around the players is really interesting, because last year Ken defied the modern course of things … he galvanised the players, he coached better than ever before, they won their 13 in a row, but they were gassed by the time that they got to the finals.
“The risk, in a scenario like this, is in the ferocity to diminish him or discredit him is you actually forget what he’s done for Port Adelaide, and the lack of gratitude here is probably the bit that I find most distasteful.”
Hinkley is one of 45 coaches to have coached more than 200 games, with the veteran mentor achieving a 59.4 per cent win rate from 262 games.
That win percentage sits 15th among coaches with 200+ games, with Chris Scott’s 68 per cent ranking tops.
However, for his exemplary games record, his 41.7 per cent win rate in finals matches leaves a lot to be desired.
“He doesn’t have the premiership, and there’s no camouflage for that,” Whateley continued. “And he doesn’t have the finals record, but he has led Port Adelaide from oblivion to an awful lot of winning.
“So, this idea that he’s never been any good — that’s just wrong. I hate these moments as the role is diminished and disrespected, and he deserves much better than that, but there is no safeguarding against the fact that if you are a coach in your 12th year and you haven’t won a premiership, if this is a fall that sees them miss the eight, there will be no surviving.”
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Robinson agreed with Whateley’s assertion that Port missing out on a finals seed would result in Hinkley’s termination — but he urged the club to be grateful to him on his way out, if he were to depart.
“There won’t be (any surviving if Port misses the finals), (but) no one should kick a guy like Ken Hinkley out the door,” Robinson said.
“The door should be opened up for him and they should stop him and say ‘hey, we want to thank you so, so much for what you’ve done to our footy team’.
“But the vibe is so bad that we’re sort of already talking about (him being) in trouble, that he’s gone — (but) they’re 8-6 and they sit in eighth spot. But the vibe is terrible, mate.
“Right now, there’s a bit of a stench around not just Ken Hinkley’s coaching, (but) there’s a bit of a stench around all of Port Adelaide at the moment, the way he’s getting treated, the way the players are playing — it’s not a good place.”
St Kilda (Marvel Stadium), the Western Bulldogs (Adelaide Oval) and Gold Coast (People First Stadium) are Port Adelaide’s next three opponents.