Opinion I've lost my faith in Ken Hinkley

[Kickpuncher]

If we lose to Hawthorn and Ken isn't sacked its officially #eco time.

We should be in the top 4, but instead we're going to be 8th and lovin' it.

 

[tribey]

Ken is running out of time. This 50-50 stuff isn't going to cut the mustard much longer. Need to find a way to win when games get tight and tough or we'll end up 11-11 with a percentage of 140 and it'll be bye bye Ken.

He was stiff tonight, but f**k man, roll the dice.

Pick Monfries. Pick Palmer. Maybe even pick another tall to exploit the lack of Lonergan.

It's bordering on the 05/08/09 Williams years where he'd stick fat with his favourites on a headlong plunge to mediocrity, because heaven forbid an in-form bolter from the seconds might come in and not be BOG on debut...

 

[OneGreatClub]

I agree, Hinkley has just lost my respect. I know I am a few hours late, but I am still in China and watched on replay, I am livid at how we were shafted and if the club isn't tough enough to speak up then that's disappointing. Against Crows earlier this year the count down clock was already 10 seconds down before our player got ball.

Of course the Advertiser have made a headline story about Ken saying the decision was 100% right.
The umps must line up with glee each week to shaft us, knowing there'll be no flak.

 

[Enviable Tradition]

No rage in the presser about the treatment we got then I take it. That's weaker than having the spine to call it out.

Ken is trying to build a more resilient group. No more blaming external things for our results. No more best 0-4 team in history.

He is saying to his players be better than that. Put the result beyond the umpires. Work harder. Play smarter.

I have no problem with Ken putting it all on the players and the coaches.

They need to get better. They need to get more resilient. They need to learn to win the close ones irrespective of the external factors.

We all know if he gives this group a soft out they will take it.

I am fully supportiveof Ken's approach.


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[Black 18]

Ken is trying to build a more resilient group. No more blaming external things for our results. No more best 0-4 team in history.

He is saying to his players be better than that. Put the result beyond the umpires. Work harder. Play smarter.

I have no problem with Ken putting it all on the players and the coaches.

They need to get better. They need to get more resilient. They need to learn to win the close ones irrespective of the external factors.

We all know if he gives this group a soft out they will take it.

I am fully supportiveof Ken's approach.


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What?

It's something like 0-20 in close games or similar.

If that is indeed Hinkley's plan then it's not working.

 

[Jakksynn]

Ken clearly isn't a superb coach, he's got us back into a competitive side, dare I say a good side, the problem now is we can't ******* win close games, and by extension we can't beat good sides. I hate saying it but we should be a top 4 side. We should've beaten Geelong and we should've beaten West Coast. We didn't and we aren't and as the head coach that's on him.

And FOR *S SAKE KEN, do something about our set shot kicking. Westhoff and Dixon shouldn't be allowed to leave training Monday without nailing 10/10 from 20 out on various angles

 

[Visenfest]

Ken is trying to build a more resilient group. No more blaming external things for our results. No more best 0-4 team in history.

He is saying to his players be better than that. Put the result beyond the umpires. Work harder. Play smarter.

I have no problem with Ken putting it all on the players and the coaches.

They need to get better. They need to get more resilient. They need to learn to win the close ones irrespective of the external factors.

We all know if he gives this group a soft out they will take it.

I am fully supportiveof Ken's approach.


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Ken will build resilience in this group by making sure they understand that repeated failure, regardless of who you are, means you don't get selected. He's running out of time to start doing that.

 

[tribey]

Ken is trying to build a more resilient group. No more blaming external things for our results. No more best 0-4 team in history.

He is saying to his players be better than that. Put the result beyond the umpires. Work harder. Play smarter.

I have no problem with Ken putting it all on the players and the coaches.

They need to get better. They need to get more resilient. They need to learn to win the close ones irrespective of the external factors.

We all know if he gives this group a soft out they will take it.

I am fully supportiveof Ken's approach.


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Lol. It's clearly working.

• North 2013 (38-15)
• Geelong Semi 2013 (0-9 or 1-9 in Q4 including the diabolical Corey-Carlile decision)
• Sydney 2014 (field umpire literally has a brain haemorrhage but she'll be right)
• Hawthorn Prelim 2014 (of all the coup de graces)
• Adelaide 2014 (the one where they had more frees in their F50 than we had frees. the premiership favourites scragging an also-ran, apparently)
• Carlton 2015 (Kade Simpson said he touched it)
• Carlton 2016 (not much better)
• Adelaide 2017 (Cameron's late hit on Houston for the turnover goal still burns)
• Geelong 2017 (hehehe)

On the flip, remember when we had half of Australia calling for a royal commission because Jay Schulz finally got a couple of frees against that scragging doucheschooner Scott D. Thompson?

I could understand this rationale if we were still in year one of the regime, but it's almost as if turning the other cheek isn't working.

 

[1954]

If we lose to Hawthorn and Ken isn't sacked its officially #eco time.

We should be in the top 4, but instead we're going to be 8th and lovin' it.

Kochie has already said that Kern will be the coach until the end of season 2018.

I would love to be as sure of winning cross lotto as I am that Kochie's ego will not allow him to retract that statement, even if he admits to himself that it was wrong.

 

[El_Scorcho]

Building resilience is fine.

But winning breeds winning. We pinch a few close ones and all of a sudden we're a top 4 side and the belief returns.

Every other club calls this stuff out and gets the resultant benefits the following few weeks. Stay quiet and we'll continue to enjoy our opposition getting a ride every few weeks.

 

[Powerade 08]

Kochie has already said that Kern will be the coach until the end of season 2018.

I would love to be as sure of winning cross lotto as I am that Kochie's ego will not allow him to retract that statement, even if he admits to himself that it was wrong.

Yeah, that's the thing. There's no way we won't honour his contract now.

 

[afl2004]

He's a less emotional later version of mark williams . I like him as a bloke but he is a dud coach . He just has a good amount of great talent to smoke easy beats but if you're a great coach you get you're team to find a way to win tight games and beat decent teams at home with 40 k fans cheering you on . But time and time again he fails and sticks with the same guys who always fail him and the club.

The fact that westhoff has played over 200 games for this club speaks volumes of our incompetence as a club to set premiership standards. Westhoff should of been delisted last off season as a true sign of our no weakness approach to achieving greatness but yet again we love to be the nice guys. The club that sticks by "our boys" as the weak supporters say on social media say.

How much evidence do we need to tell us he has nothing to teach our players to make them premiership winning players like another 5 years of averageness were we get nothing but "well we had some nice wins here and there"

 

[1954]

Re the scumps, my opinion is Ken is either saying what he is told to say, ie he is following the party line, or he simply isn't smart enough to work out that turning the other cheek isn't working, and is only giving them a green light because they know he won't complain even when they get it wrong.

I don't buy this resilience stuff either, there is a very fine line between keeping a team finely tuned, or completely f****** with its confidence, and we are hovering over that line.

 

[ZingerB]

Ken is trying to build a more resilient group. No more blaming external things for our results. No more best 0-4 team in history.

He is saying to his players be better than that. Put the result beyond the umpires. Work harder. Play smarter.

I have no problem with Ken putting it all on the players and the coaches.

They need to get better. They need to get more resilient. They need to learn to win the close ones irrespective of the external factors.

We all know if he gives this group a soft out they will take it.

I am fully supportiveof Ken's approach.


Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

We shouldn't have to be 4-5 goals better than one of the best sides in the comp playing at a ground they never lose at. Name a side that would have beaten Geelong tonight with the umpiring the way it was?

 

[QPower]

The Hinkley era is over.

The matrix is in a loop where Port find ever news ways to lose close games - with the common thread being an inability to get over the line even when the odds are stacked in our favour.

May the death rites be mercifully short.

 

[Janus]

Ken is trying to build a more resilient group. No more blaming external things for our results. No more best 0-4 team in history.

He is saying to his players be better than that. Put the result beyond the umpires. Work harder. Play smarter.

I have no problem with Ken putting it all on the players and the coaches.

They need to get better. They need to get more resilient. They need to learn to win the close ones irrespective of the external factors.

We all know if he gives this group a soft out they will take it.

I am fully supportiveof Ken's approach.


Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

He gave this group a soft out the moment he picked Young over Monfries.

The group would have seen Young get dropped and thought 'Ok, if you don't perform to the level for a couple of weeks, you're out'...only to find him back in the side because Wingard got injured. You know what that says to players? That it doesn't matter if I perform poorly as an individual, if the team keeps carrying me to wins, I'm just 'unlucky'.

This would have been our Bulldogs/Sydney 2015/16 moment that propels us to a flag if we had won, which is why it was important to win it, and why I wanted to play Gus, because he knows how to win. Instead, we are here talking about a bullshit narrow loss.

It is unacceptable bullshit. I haven't lost my faith in Ken, but I'm starting to think he might be Moses - the guy who gets us to the River Jordan but who never crosses with us into the promised land.

 

[HighBudget]

He gave this group a soft out the moment he picked Young over Monfries.

The group would have seen Young get dropped and thought 'Ok, if you don't perform to the level for a couple of weeks, you're out'...only to find him back in the side because Wingard got injured. You know what that says to players? That it doesn't matter if I perform poorly as an individual, if the team keeps carrying me to wins, I'm just 'unlucky'.

This would have been our Bulldogs/Sydney 2015/16 moment that propels us to a flag if we had won, which is why it was important to win it, and why I wanted to play Gus, because he knows how to win. Instead, we are here talking about a bullshit narrow loss.

It is unacceptable bullshit. I haven't lost my faith in Ken, but I'm starting to think he might be Moses - the guy who gets us to the River Jordan but who never crosses with us into the promised land.

Good to have you back Janus, I've still got faith in Ken as well. our next match can't come quick enough

 

[tribey]

I'd rather be in a West Coast-type position of being utter s**t in Victoria than what we are now. At least then we'd be forced to critically review and adjust our gameplan and selections because something's clearly lacking in the crunch against sides in the eight.

But we're perennially stuck in this no-man's land of playing really good football, nailing metric after metric, but somehow falling short in the end because of a lapse here, a blown assignment there or just plain old bad luck with the game on a knife edge.

And because of this, we're simultaneously tempted to tweak instead of pivot, because we are so close. All the numbers are favourable, the wins emphatic, the losses honourable and no-one, by and large, has two bad games in a row. But the reality is, we're once again a thoroughly mediocre 5-4. With all four losses coming against the current quartet of apex predators.

So Hinkley has a choice to make. Does he keep on pissing around the edges with like for like tinkering - Monfries for Young/Amon, for instance - or does he look to shake things up with an eye to finding a way to bridging this chasm that's opened up between us and the contenders? An extra tall at the expense of Sam Gray perhaps, or a versatile medium like Palmer ahead of one of our superfluous HBF's who were largely diabolical last night?

9 games into his fifth season, it's now bleedingly obvious that natural progression isn't going to cut it if we want to extract a premiership from this group and shaking up the lineup could bolster and reinvigorate the current pseudosuccessful gameplan without sacrificing it, beginning with ditching the archaic notion that small = run, speed and pressure; tall = does not.

As long as the Sherrin still travels faster than feet, supplementing Dixon with more marking power and another reliable setshot could make all the difference. Moving Hartlett to a wing-forward role where he could do maximum damage with minimal touches - think a svelte Stuart Dew - would surely be worth the diceroll at this point as he is certainly no better a defender than Pittard, Broadbent and Byrne-Jones and certainly no loss to our backline.

Or we can keep doing what we're doing and have done since 2015.

Beat Hawthorn.
Lose to Essendon.
Belt Brisbane.
Lose to Collingwood.
Beat Richmond.

And be heading into the last portion of the season - replete with a trip to Subiaco, the Dogs in Ballarat and a Showdown - still on the precipice at 8-6 and resorting to wishing upon Burgess' magical thighmaster making our guys suddenly morph into flagworthy ironmen as the rest of the competition rusts.

Bottom line, right now it feels like we're straitjacketed into playing a certain way that we now know crushes inferior teams but isn't enough to beat the better teams. We can't batter the Adelaides, GWSes and Footscrays into submission with it like we can the Gold Coasts and Brisbanes.

So, enough of dying wondering. Let's make some changes and see if we can't maximise the potential in this team. What's the absolute worst that could happen? We still can't win against contenders and merely beat instead of wallop also-rans while getting games into the likes of SPP?

Heaven forbid.

 

[scottjr]

I worry about Nathan Bassett lately just because I think Richmond should get hold of him the first chance they get. We've guaranteed Ken is coaching next year I'm not sure we should have.

 

[Pt Augusta Power]

I agree, Ken played it safe at selection with youngs selection. His 'work harder' bullshit doesn't wash anymore, he has built a team that doesn't know how to win.

The only thing you can take from that game is that we are gunning for 8th. We don't exist to win premierships, the clubs attitude has shifted.

Wide open season and we have a coach who has his sights firmly on that coverted 8th place.

 

[Finest of Wines]

The gameplan isnt why we lost, missing easy goals is.

The team are very wasteful in front of goal and it has cost us again. The bearded barista is the biggest culprit of this, turns to water whenever he has a set shot

 

[OneGreatClub]

We shouldn't have to be 4-5 goals better than one of the best sides in the comp playing at a ground they never lose at. Name a side that would have beaten Geelong tonight with the umpiring the way it was?

this

 

[Power Girl]

The gameplan isnt why we lost, missing easy goals is.

The team are very wasteful in front of goal and it has cost us again. The bearded barista is the biggest culprit of this, turns to water whenever he has a set shot

Well then coaches need to make an example of him and send a clear message to perform or gtfo. But no they keep refusing to pull the trigger and we will remain middly piddly and that is unacceptable with this list, and in this year. Do something and now Ken. Why do the players need to improve their goal kicking if they keep getting selected and oh we were unlucky. Players don't select themselves or I am pretty sure our team would have looked different last night.

 

[sobrave]

I worry about Nathan Bassett lately just because I think Richmond should get hold of him the first chance they get. We've guaranteed Ken is coaching next year I'm not sure we should have.

We can't afford to lose another assistant. We'll go back to 2015/16 levels of s**t

 

[5um0F1]

I have stuck by Ken through thick and thin but I think its time to get in Basset's ear about a succession plan.
We cannot let him go and leave us in another s**t can of despair with a limited experience coaching box.

Still give Ken the benefit for the rest of the year, but if we don't hit our key metrics, slide in Bass and see what he's got.

I realise last night was decided by the maggots but we should have been further in front so it did not matter.