Scape Goat I've lost my faith in Ken Hinkley Part 2

[Tibbs]

They've been doing that for years tho.
Kochie has said for a long time that his role was to put the pieces around Ken such that Ken would be a ten year head coach. That's in large part of the problem.

Your head coach should be the top dog, the one everyone looks up and defers to. Based on the resources around Ken and his obvious shortcomings, it's difficult to say that he is the true leader of the club.

Nah, the two coaches that come to mind who tried to be controlling "top dogs" in Hardwick and Buckley, both failed at it, and were at death's door infill they realised it just doesn't work in modern football!

They both changed, and the results streak for themselves. Read some of the articles about the great Clarkson. He doesn't even take part in many of Hawthorn's coaching sessions. He entrusts and empowers his assistants, yet he is still the head coach.

Port/Hinkley have failed to get it right in the past few years - no question. However, the changes this year are much more than skin deep. Hinkley himself had made admissions, and subsequent moves, that he has not done before. Let's at least wait until the games start to see how this translates, before we condemn!

 

[RossFC]

Meanwhile, Clarko’s been rubbing shoulders with Gareth Southgate.

Ken did it before it was cool.

 

[El_Scorcho]

I think it's more the entire board and not just this thread. People are rightfully negative but I can understand people who are trying to be positive. The club has done some positive things this off-season.

Hinkley lingers like a dark cloud. No one trusts him.

At this point of the system all but the most rusted on pessimists will have some hope for the season.

The reason we're probably more negative than usual is because instead of this season building on the last, we're just knocking the house of cards down and starting again. The usual excitement over draftees is offset by the loss of quality in the trade period. We have no idea how the gameplan will look. We have no idea how the rule changes will affect us. We don't trust the coach.

 

[Amarula]

At this point of the system all but the most rusted on pessimists will have some hope for the season.

The reason we're probably more negative than usual is because instead of this season building on the last, we're just knocking the house of cards down and starting again. The usual excitement over draftees is offset by the loss of quality in the trade period. We have no idea how the gameplan will look. We have no idea how the rule changes will affect us. We don't trust the coach.

This is true to some extent. But on the other hand, as well as the draftees, we've also picked up Lycett, who's going to be a real positive, and Burton, who probably will be.

Then we have three virtual recruits in Rockcliff, Watts & Motlop, who for various reasons contributed very little in 2018, but are looking as if they'll have much more influence this year.

Then there's the prospect of the return of Hammer and perhaps Broadbent, if he returns to anything like good form.

Then there are Boak to the midfield, SPP likely to have a better year, Ryder likely to be more durable.

Yes, it's possible that every other side will improve more than we will, and there's still a chance that it will all turn to humus under the type of sustained opposition pressure that doesn't happen in JLT. But enough seems to have been put in place to give good grounds for optimism.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Meanwhile, Clarko’s been rubbing shoulders with Gareth Southgate.

Ken did it before it was cool.

Clarko used to go visit Bolton Wanderers before he coached his first flag in 2008 and that's where he learnt about the press and so called Clarko's Cluster was developed. Over the next decade he has kept going back to visiting Bolton.

I did a search for when he started going there, as a 2012 article about kicking and skills acquisition coach David Rath, Shane Crawford talked about them going to Bolton early on in their caching tenures. I found this article Clarko wrote on the Hawks website in May 2013, before I found my post about the 2012 article.

https://www.hawthornfc.com.au/news/2013-05-29/clarkos-lessons-from-abroad
OVER the past eight years, the coaches at Hawthorn have developed a great interest in observing the training methods of elite sportspeople around the world. My travels at the end of last year took me to the west coast of the United States in late October, before flying across the southern US, Spain and the UK to visit the San Antonio Spurs (NBA), Philadelphia Eagles (NFL), FC Barcelona (Spain's La Liga) and Bolton Wanderers (formerly of the English Premier League).

We were fortunate to spend time with former tennis player Darren Cahill in Las Vegas, where he has been involved in the coaching of Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf, amongst others.

While the sport of tennis is very different to AFL, there are so many things to learn about an elite athlete’s physical and mental preparation to perform that is applicable to all sportspeople. We were particularly surprised by Steffi as we watched her complete an on-court training session with her coach. She was preparing to play an exhibition game against Martina Navratilova and was eager to fine-tune her game. Darren invited us to observe her from the backcourt, standing no further than five metres from where she was hitting up. We were astonished at how well she was hitting the ball, despite this being her first hit for some time due to injury. I was curious as to the secret of her success as an elite-level tennis player with 22 Grand Slam titles. Darren told me to watch her footwork and preparation before striking the ball. Small, soft, delicate steps set up her preparation to strike the ball. At 42, I’m certain she could still be a force in women’s tennis today.
........
My first coaching trip abroad was to Manchester United when I was an assistant coach at Port Adelaide. Through a close friend of mine, I was introduced to Rod Marsh who at that time was heading up the English Cricket Board's Academy based at Loughborough University in Nottinghamshire. I spent some time with Rod and through his contacts, we traveled up through the midlands to visit Manchester United and observe their program in action.......

 

[Duck Farmer]

Ken Hinkley, Aug 24 2018:

The what and the why will come, the what is clear to me – the contest broke. The why, give me some time, we’ll work through that with the coaches and we’ll come up with the why and we’ll be really certain.

Ken Hinkley, Mar 19 2019:

It makes it hard for Melbourne to predict what we're going to do, because we don't know what we're going to do.

Nice to see the off-season's been put to good use.

 

[Doctor Feel]

That line about nor know what we are going to do is great. It genuinely makes me lol.

 

[Magus]

The man is a meme.

 

[DazalenkoUBewty]

Ken Hinkley, Mar 19 2019:


Nice to see the off-season's been put to good use.

It was just a bit of fun, DuckFer.

 

[Kiss from a Rozee]

Ken is actually genuinely funny.

Also not knowing what you’re gonna do means you have varied options and plans, it doesn’t mean you have NFI. It takes a special kind of person to misinterpret that line.

 

[Duck Farmer]

What's he said that gives you confidence that he's worked out how to fix the cluster**** that was the 2018 gameplan? Is it things like co-captains will help us win more games because reasons? I'm going with the he's got NFI option.

 

[Kiss from a Rozee]

What's he said that gives you confidence that he's worked out how to fix the cluster**** that was the 2018 gameplan? Is it things like co-captains will help us win more games because reasons? I'm going with the he's got NFI option.

Well firstly I’ve never thought our gameplan was anything close to a “cluster****” in 2019. It possibly wasn’t good enough, definitely could have scored more, and was too reliant on Ryder not getting injured but we were a pretty strong side and would have been even stronger come finals had we made it.

As for the improvements this year, if you’ve watched us play at all you would know we’ve gone way more aggressive, we also brought in Lycett to enormously mitigate any injury to Ryder. AKA we’ve rectified both major criticisms of last season that I had.

 

[Duck Farmer]

Well firstly I’ve never thought our gameplan was anything close to a “cluster****” in 2019. It possibly wasn’t good enough, definitely could have scored more, and was too reliant on Ryder not getting injured but we were a pretty strong side and would have been even stronger come finals had we made it.

As for the improvements this year, if you’ve watched us play at all you would know we’ve gone way more aggressive, we also brought in Lycett to enormously mitigate any injury to Ryder. AKA we’ve rectified both major criticisms of last season that I had.

Look, I know his "we don't know what we're doing" comment was a throwaway comment from him trying to be funny. It just shits me that an underperforming coach who extorted a contract extension from the club by threatening to walk and who shows scant evidence that he has any tactical nous whatsoever would come out with something like that, especially after promising a forensic examination of last season's failures and clarity on how to address them.

 

[DazalenkoUBewty]

Look, I know his "we don't know what we're doing" comment was a throwaway comment from him trying to be funny. It just shits me that an underperforming coach who extorted a contract extension from the club by threatening to walk and who shows scant evidence that he has any tactical nous whatsoever would come out with something like that, especially after promising a forensic examination of last season's failures and clarity on how to address them.

He had a legit offer from a club that he'd coached at before. No doubt a seriously big decision to weigh up for Ken and his family. GC would've had a very nice contract for him.

 

[Port85]

The 2018 gameplan wasn't a cluster ****. It was a choice to protect a defensive unit by dropping the whole team defence alot deeper than in 2017.

This, imo, was the wrong call because it exposed us to our own biggest weakness - rebounding the ball back up the field by foot while leaving us more exposed at stoppages as well.

I think turning the ball over higher up the field is the right call for us, if we can execute.

Nothing will really matter though if we're non-competitive in the midfield though, which was a massive drop off area in the back end of 2018.

My lack of faith in Ken is more that he seems to make the wrong call on strategic direction regularly, rather than being incapable of having a strategy.

 

[Coobk001]

I would like to know why people think us not making finals would trigger a Ken sacking.

I think most of us realists expect us to be in that 8-13th range and the club came out at the convention and noted they expected a downturn in performance this year.

So if internally they expect us to struggle to play finals, and externally we expect that. I can't see him being sacked unless things go completely wrong and we finish bottom 4

 

[Duck Farmer]

He had a legit offer from a club that he'd coached at before. No doubt a seriously big decision to weigh up for Ken and his family. GC would've had a very nice contract for him.

A big decision made over a weekend with the Chairman and CEO at his place for crisis talks. Did the offer expire at midnight or something?

 

[Steve Dore]

He had a legit offer from a club that he'd coached at before. No doubt a seriously big decision to weigh up for Ken and his family. GC would've had a very nice contract for him.

He was under contract to Port. There was nothing to weigh up.

The fact that he even considered breaking his contact shows his lack of commitment to Port and should have excluded him from being offered a contract extension at that time. Koch and co soiled the bed linen at the thought of possibly losing Superhero coach Ken.

 

[RossFC]

I would like to know why people think us not making finals would trigger a Ken sacking.

I think most of us realists expect us to be in that 8-13th range and the club came out at the convention and noted they expected a downturn in performance this year.

So if internally they expect us to struggle to play finals, and externally we expect that. I can't see him being sacked unless things go completely wrong and we finish bottom 4

It's WAY too early in his deal for him to get sacked.

 

[DazalenkoUBewty]

He was under contract to Port. There was nothing to weigh up.

The fact that he even considered breaking his contact shows his lack of commitment to Port and should have excluded him from being offered a contract extension at that time. Koch and co soiled the bed linen at the thought of possibly losing Superhero coach Ken.

GC would have offered more security and maybe more money than we were at the time.
So why shouldn't Ken weigh up his and his familys future? Should no one weigh up their future, or is it just Ken that shouldn't??

Ken has absolute commitment to pafc...to say anything to the contrary is just ridiculous imho.

 

[Duck Farmer]

So why shouldn't Ken weigh up his and his familys future? Should no one weigh up their future, or is it just Ken that shouldn't??

So why shouldn't his feet be held to the fire when he's not performing? Should the Creed only apply to the old Port Adelaide or should it apply to the current regime as well?

 

[TeeKray]

It's WAY too early in his deal for him to get sacked.

If we go 4-18 it won't matter how many years he has left on his contract, he's getting sacked.

 

[DazalenkoUBewty]

So why shouldn't his feet be held to the fire when he's not performing? Should the Creed only apply to the old Port Adelaide or should it apply to the current regime as well?

What exact part of the Creed are you talking about?

This isn't the SANFL btw.

 

[RossFC]

If we go 4-18 it won't matter how many years he has left on his contract, he's getting sacked.

Can we even afford doing that?

 

[TeeKray]

Can we even afford doing that?

If things go that badly, we wouldn't be able to afford not to. Point is, no coach is ever safe.