Opinion I've lost my faith in Ken Hinkley

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elpirate

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You couldn't get a more appropriate nickname for Hartlett than Hartless.

His official nick name (Hammer) is so far off the mark it's not funny.

The guy doesn't hammer anything except for the sanity of the supporter base who he constantly terrorises with his half assed efforts.

Let's hope he turns it around this year but nothing I have seen so far suggests he has changed at all.

He should've been gone 2 years ago.

Also if players cant handle criticism in their highly paid, high profile roles then they need to find another job. They made their bed so they should lie in it.

Effort alone is not enough is this world and I'm sick of people thinking that it is. Ability is as important as effort is.
 

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JUSTWORK

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I agree with the majority of people's assessment of Harlett's efforts with the club but I am uncomfortable with the use of derogatory names with our own players.
Fair point, I do understand it though. He is such a talented player the could be a massive part of us repeating 1014, and then taking that next step.

But more then any player I'm yelling where's the pressure, questioning why he's not chasing, only jogging, letting players run past him not takeling them... and then there his non attempt to shepherd Stringer that cost us the bulldogs game at AO last year
 
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I'm too scared to click "Show Ignored Content" to see who you two are responding to but I agree, for all his under-performing I'd not call Hartlett "hartless". I'm certain Steve Morris would agree.

People keep quoting Hartletts effort against Richmond in defence of his toughness. It was great and everyone loved it.

How long ago was that effort?

Lots of soy lattes under the bridge since that game...
 

Steve Dore

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People keep quoting Hartletts effort against Richmond in defence of his toughness. It was great and everyone loved it.

How long ago was that effort?

Lots of soy lattes under the bridge since that game...
Agree he has been mostly poo since that effort but he doesn't lack heart as such, he has just completely lost his mojo.
 

PREDAT0R

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Heart isn't just about putting your body on the line or being a tough guy.

Heart is about standing up when your team needs to and winning football games.
Right, and about finding it within yourself to kick straight for goal when it seems the whole team has the yips.

To stay focused and confident when the run of play is against you.

To keep your head up when all around you are dropping theirs.

And so on...
 

Powerage

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Right, and about finding it within yourself to kick straight for goal when it seems the whole team has the yips.

To stay focused and confident when the run of play is against you.

To keep your head up when all around you are dropping theirs.

And so on...
He is hardly an orphan there. There are maybe 3 players who could be said to do this consistently when the chips are down. Maybe less because Gray's easy set shots are not a given even when we are up and about.

It's not a complete defense, but I strongly believe he is being played out of position. He should be on a wing or half forward flank. His raking kick alone makes him a danger from 60 metres out. He would be a better Stewart Dew given an opportunity IMO. This gets back to the the point of the thread. Hinkley's sutbborness to try players in different positions and lack of more than one game plan.

Still this is not excuse for the valid criticism of him.
 

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Yea I think criticising any player too much is pointless because of the system around them. As the man above said we have like 3 players who can hold their head high knowing they give it all. That's 3 out of over 40.
 

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FallingLiefs

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Hartlett played fine last week (better than most of his teammates) in a new position. there's no point dropping him he copped a fair whack over the trade period let him work through it.

i would be reasonably disappointed in ken if he finally makes a statement and it's round 1 with a player who's magnet he's moved in the pre-seasonon the back of an average to slightly below average pre-season series.

round 1 isn't the time to make a statement.
 

OneGreatClub

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http://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/the...n/news-story/51659013bbc5b65e508f762ff444836a
Two unsuccessful seasons later and the Power are in danger of missing the finals for a third straight season.

While the Power have underachieved in many pundits’ eyes, they’ve actually had the best ladder percentage of any non-finalist across the past two consecutive seasons, suggesting they’re better than most think.

But, numerically and stylistically, they’re a shadow of the team that fell a kick of short of reaching the 2014 grand final.
 

Rankor

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http://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/the...n/news-story/51659013bbc5b65e508f762ff444836a
Two unsuccessful seasons later and the Power are in danger of missing the finals for a third straight season.

While the Power have underachieved in many pundits’ eyes, they’ve actually had the best ladder percentage of any non-finalist across the past two consecutive seasons, suggesting they’re better than most think.

But, numerically and stylistically, they’re a shadow of the team that fell a kick of short of reaching the 2014 grand final.
What we have lost since 2014 is the ability to win close games, fight our way back for a win and never ever playing 4 quarters of footy. The last 2 seasons we have lost the majority of our games on the back of 1 horrible quarter.
 

OneGreatClub

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What we have lost since 2014 is the ability to win close games, fight our way back for a win and never ever playing 4 quarters of footy. The last 2 seasons we have lost the majority of our games on the back of 1 horrible quarter.
Let's hope we can fix that. We should be training specifically on how to win the close ones.
 

PREDAT0R

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I've said this for years - the club needs a team of full-time sports psychologists.

A player is a body and a mind - if either one is off, they don't perform.

We surround them all with cutting edge talent and technology to take care of the body. They have Burgo, his assistants, Mladen, the wrestling guy, physios, doctors, trainers, weights rooms, machines, tanks, etc etc, to take care of the body side.

But what do they surround them with to take care of the mental side? To train them in techniques to maintain focus when the chips are down ... to shut out surrounding noise and distractions when shooting for goal ...... to harness the full power of the brain's circuitry to nail that shot ..... to deal with scoreboard pressure in a controlled way .... to maintain the upper mental hand .... to deal with all the stresses of modern professional sport and the immense pressure that the club community exerts on them either directly or in an implied manner?

They are just told to harden the **** up. There's a massive discrepancy between the attention we pay to their bodies and to their minds. These days, most squads are very similar in their fitness, strength and so on. The successful teams are always mentally tough and mentally skilled. It's about ****ing time we took care of that side too. Only the very top coaches can take care of it on their own, and Ken has made it pretty clear he is not in that category.
 

PatientMental

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I've said this for years - the club needs a team of full-time sports psychologists.

A player is a body and a mind - if either one is off, they don't perform.

We surround them all with cutting edge talent and technology to take care of the body. They have Burgo, his assistants, Mladen, the wrestling guy, physios, doctors, trainers, weights rooms, machines, tanks, etc etc, to take care of the body side.

But what do they surround them with to take care of the mental side? To train them in techniques to maintain focus when the chips are down ... to shut out surrounding noise and distractions when shooting for goal ...... to harness the full power of the brain's circuitry to nail that shot ..... to deal with scoreboard pressure in a controlled way .... to maintain the upper mental hand .... to deal with all the stresses of modern professional sport and the immense pressure that the club community exerts on them either directly or in an implied manner?

They are just told to harden the **** up. There's a massive discrepancy between the attention we pay to their bodies and to their minds. These days, most squads are very similar in their fitness, strength and so on. The successful teams are always mentally tough and mentally skilled. It's about ****ing time we took care of that side too.
We have that brain doctor now.
 
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What we have lost since 2014 is the ability to win close games, fight our way back for a win and never ever playing 4 quarters of footy. The last 2 seasons we have lost the majority of our games on the back of 1 horrible quarter.
In 2014, I believed we could slay any giant that tried to oppose us...
Now I believe we can be overrun by a team of disorganised, clueless midgets coming of a 3 day bender in Bangkok's red light district.
 
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240volt

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You look at that last 2 minute video against the crows and you almost want to cry. You can talk about teams finding us out after 2014 but nobody has found out teams like hawthorn in over 30 years. I honestly dont believe so many players can drop off all at the same time. Something at our club just doesn't add up.
 

Schulzenfest

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I agree with the majority of people's assessment of Harlett's efforts with the club but I am uncomfortable with the use of derogatory names with our own players.
This. I don't care if he comes out literally wrapped in cotton wool on Sunday, nicknaming a Port player 'Hartless' is an absolute shit thing to do from a supposed supporter of the club.

Interstater copped some heat for his 'supporter, not critic' thread, and rightly so, but that was because that thread lumped genuine constructive criticism in along with nonconstructive abuse. 'Hamish Hartlett needs to stand up more in big games' is fine. 'Hamish Hartless' is not.
 

Pappagallo

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I've said this for years - the club needs a team of full-time sports psychologists.

A player is a body and a mind - if either one is off, they don't perform.

We surround them all with cutting edge talent and technology to take care of the body. They have Burgo, his assistants, Mladen, the wrestling guy, physios, doctors, trainers, weights rooms, machines, tanks, etc etc, to take care of the body side.

But what do they surround them with to take care of the mental side? To train them in techniques to maintain focus when the chips are down ... to shut out surrounding noise and distractions when shooting for goal ...... to harness the full power of the brain's circuitry to nail that shot ..... to deal with scoreboard pressure in a controlled way .... to maintain the upper mental hand .... to deal with all the stresses of modern professional sport and the immense pressure that the club community exerts on them either directly or in an implied manner?

They are just told to harden the **** up. There's a massive discrepancy between the attention we pay to their bodies and to their minds. These days, most squads are very similar in their fitness, strength and so on. The successful teams are always mentally tough and mentally skilled. It's about ****ing time we took care of that side too. Only the very top coaches can take care of it on their own, and Ken has made it pretty clear he is not in that category.
Good post.

This may have changed but I'm pretty sure that only one club has a full time clinical psychologist on the books and surprise surprise it's f@#king Sydney.
 

raptalia

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To get back to Hinkley, I have to admit to being confused. Everytime Ken or the players open their mouths these days we hear of a 'new game plan' and the latest is 'new vision'. Yesterday we even had Ken saying that he felt we were 'too fast in developing a new playing style'. I must have missed something because thus far I have not noted any obvious new style. We appear to be playing the same low skill brand of indirect football with the same serial offenders missing targets and turning the ball over. The only differences I have really noticed are a couple of players in different positions with debatable effect.

I am not sure how much time Ken thinks he has but the pre season is almost gone so does that mean we go into 2017 tinkering with our existing game plan, if indeed we have one, and hoping that it will come good at some stage during the season? Maybe others see something I do not, maybe I am in for a pleasant surprise come Sunday or Round 1 ? I certainly hope so.

The players have obviously been instructed to do things differently and are working hard to correct our deficiencies but the question is when are we going to see something different out on the park?
 

Janus

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The obvious change is to get the ball moving as quickly as possible out of defence so opposition sides can't set up their zone. If you watched the second half game last night between Melbourne and West Coast you would have seen what happens when you do that - there's lots of mistakes, errant kicks, turnovers etc because play like that requires complete trust that there will be someone where they are supposed to be.

However, hesitation and fear due to thinking about the consequences of turning the ball over generally lead to play that is too slow to beat the zone and too fast to not get you into trouble. I believe that there are meant to be two options at all time for the kicker to take - the fast risky option (plan a) and the slow, safe option (plan b). Our problem at the moment is that players are preferring to kick a dump kick out of defence to reset and try to run it out quickly from the following defensive 50 entry than working through congestion methodically.

That's why Ken says they are picking up too much of the game plan at times - yes, the plan is to beat the zone with fast, instinctive ball movement...but that doesn't mean blind movement.
 

PJ Power

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Let's hope we can fix that. We should be training specifically on how to win the close ones.
We showed over the last two weeks that when chasing games, we don't yet have the class, composure and singlemindedness to cross the finish line with our noses in front.

If we could have achieved anything in rounds 1 and 2 JLT, it would have been to recapture the memory of how to actually come from behind to win, not just tease.
 
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