Roast WHAT I WANT TO SEE FROM A WELL COACHED PORT SIDE THAT KEN HINKLEY HAS FAILED TO SHOW US

[Granny Duurs is Lovely]

They don't piss away dozens of games to players with low ceilings who will never be best 22 AFL footballers.

I dunno. I never thought much of Murdoch, Lang, Thurlow, Gregson, Ruggles, Smedts and they all got plenty of games. Same can be said for Walker, Kersten and Vardy who absolutely failed at the cats. Outside of Hawkins they have really failed to develop another KPF, and Ratugolea is athletic enough that he can be their back up ruck too, so he's basically a required player with Blicavs not rucking any more.

 

[Janus]

So yes, they brought in some reasonable talent, but they also lost several future Hall of Famers to retirement, and they spent most of their time finishing in the top 4, so they didn't bring in any really high draft picks either. It's not playstation trading, you can't get huge value for your depth, and they clearly haven't here.

Geelong have stayed at the top because they're a strong club with elite standards, a strong system and can develop players to play in that system effectively.

And you think we can establish elite standards, a strong system and the ability to develop players to play in that system without spending the capital of time on it, do you? That it’s just going to happen in one or two seasons?

This is what Ken Hinkley meant when he said that we’ve got a long way to go before we reach Richmond. What he meant was that Port Adelaide as a club needs to have the ability to pick the best performing players from the SANFL and know that they will perform in the AFL, to have that commitment to elite standards regardless of where they are playing.

Chris Scott came into a club that was already one of the most professional in the league. All he needed to do was say “This is how we are playing now” and everyone adjusted accordingly. He also had access to one of the best recruiters in the game with an extensive scouting network that could find gems late in the draft.

Ken Hinkley came into a club that is still one of the most unprofessional in the league, where the president continually looks back to where we have come from instead of where we are going. He had access to a scouting network that recommended Mitch Harvey as being a good pick up.

Like I said, chalk and cheese.

 

[El_Scorcho]

And you think we can establish elite standards, a strong system and the ability to develop players to play in that system without spending the capital of time on it, do you? That it’s just going to happen in one or two seasons?

This is what Ken Hinkley meant when he said that we’ve got a long way to go before we reach Richmond. What he meant was that Port Adelaide as a club needs to have the ability to pick the best performing players from the SANFL and know that they will perform in the AFL, to have that commitment to elite standards regardless of where they are playing.

Chris Scott came into a club that was already one of the most professional in the league. All he needed to do was say “This is how we are playing now” and everyone adjusted accordingly. He also had access to one of the best recruiters in the game with an extensive scouting network that could find gems late in the draft.

Ken Hinkley came into a club that is still one of the most unprofessional in the league, where the president continually looks back to where we have come from instead of where we are going. He had access to a scouting network that recommended Mitch Harvey as being a good pick up.

Like I said, chalk and cheese.

Elite standards can happen instantly, because they are about mindset and accountability. Things that can be enforced from day 1. A strong system is also something that can come in in year 1, and you develop your players around it.

In fact Hinkley did dramatically improve our standards in 2013, but he's gone off the boil or plateaued, depending on your perspective. He also did improve our system although that appears to have been a flash in the pan, because that system hasn't been able to evolve into something keeps us competitive. We're still being out-thought almost every week.

Seven years in and elite standards had us pick a woefully out of form Aidyn Johnson earlier in the year. It has us leave Motlop and Bonner in the side way too long for whatever reason. This is bread and butter stuff that we could all see was a mistake, and we're in year 7. When do those elite standards arrive exactly?

Developing players to play in the strong system does take time, but it certainly takes a lot more time if your system is actually not that strong and you change it every year or 2.

 

[Duck Farmer]

... don't piss away dozens of games to players with low ceilings who will never be best 22 AFL footballers.

I'd be happy if we replaced the "make our community proud" part of our motto with this until we are regular premiership contenders again.

 

[Forzaport]

The 2006 Geelong review saw them bring in a new fitness head - Dean Robinson, whose methods leave open a lot of doubt how above board they were, and appointed for the first time a Footy Ops Manager - Neil Balme, to take stuff away from Thompson. We haven't made those sort of 2 fundamental preseason changes. Its the same old in those 2 departments.

Dixon and Hartlett have missed all 11 games

Big expectations and we stuffed up
Brisbane - Wines rushed back, Watts out - we choked when it counted (Gray, Ebert, Burton, Lycett, Jonas, Wines all played)
Richmond - we choked again doing the same basic mistakes as the last 5 seasons (no changes)

Collingwood, Crows, Hawks yes lots of players missing but we dont show up in the 1st quarter when expectations are high we would compete and spend the rest of the game playing catch up and fail miserably apart from a 10 minute run in the last quarter against the crows because the coach finally wakes up we need a decent forward structure not Hoff as our KPF.

Stats have fooled us before. 2017 we belted the middle class and cellar dwellers and the stats said we were great or very good in a lot of areas but when we played the top sides The HPN guys in 2017 picked it up and said you can't trust Port because our stats are biased by our results against the bottom sides. They re-stratified the stats into top 8 and bottom 10 sides, they showed we were poor against the top 8 and you and Forza said that was crap, but they were right. Stats fooled us at 11-4 last year.

You reckon we can do a Geelong and win the flag, then we beat Geelong, Freo in Perth, Adelaide in their showdown, GWS, Sydney, Essendon and Richmond at the G - no more excuses.

Ken has to go bloody try some dumplings, dim sims, noodles, sweet and sour pork, Peking duck, spicy spring rolls etc and get off the toasted ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches . Try something new and filling not the same boring ****.

I said what now? IIRC my argument was more based on us being literally one "play on" call against Geelong away from a top 4 finish in 2017. Even then I conceeded we were poor against the top teams, we just needed at least 1 damn win that never came. 2018 we actually did beat a few top 8 teams but couldn't sustain it with the players losing all confidence in our game plan against Collingwood late in the season. I also spent much of 2017 and 2018 railing against Ken's inability to innovate, constantly losing in the same way to the same teams that are able to apply consistent 4 quarter pressure.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

I said what now? IIRC my argument was more based on us being literally one "play on" call against Geelong away from a top 4 finish in 2017. Even then I conceeded we were poor against the top teams, we just needed at least 1 damn win that never came. 2018 we actually did beat a few top 8 teams but couldn't sustain it with the players losing all confidence in our game plan against Collingwood late in the season. I also spent much of 2017 and 2018 railing against Ken's inability to innovate, constantly losing in the same way to the same teams that are able to apply consistent 4 quarter pressure.

We went from 2W and 7L against the 7 other finalists in 2017 to 3W and 6L against the 8 finalists in 2018.

#marginalgains

 

[AwwThatsApples]

We went from 2W and 7L against the 7 other finalists in 2017 to 3W and 6L against the 8 finalists in 2018.

#marginalgains

And two of those three wins were against top five sides, including the reigning premiers.
I would argue we could've had five wins overall if we weren't injury struck against WC and Collingwood. A full-strength team would've likely won us at least one of those games.
In 2017 we didn't beat a single top four team, so whilst the improvement may sound minimal it was actually very important to allow us to win against big teams, which was done via locking the game in instead of blazing for big percentage.
We've faced two current top four teams this year, and won 1 out of 2, so we clearly still have the capacity to take on big teams as we did in 2018, as well as getting some more attacking football back into our system.
At our best, we get the best of both worlds, which results in strong cooperated wins and a strong percentage.
At our worst, we fail to play efficient football and prevent opposition score, getting the worst of both worlds.

 

[Forzaport]

We went from 2W and 7L against the 7 other finalists in 2017 to 3W and 6L against the 8 finalists in 2018.

#marginalgains

haha! My memory is probably off but it felt like we beat a few more teams that were actually in the 8 when we played them, not counting the first 6 or so rounds. We won a showdown, beat Richmond, had that horrid 3 point loss to Hawthorn thanks to 8x 50m penalties. So there was something to hold on to confidence wise.

 

[Janus]

"Extraordinary! On the field it looked nothing! The structure simple, almost comic. Just a solitary key forward. A resting ruck, high forwards - like a rusty squeezebox. And then, suddenly, pushing forward, a midfielder. A single player, hanging there, unwavering. Until a high back pushed forward as well, sweetened it into a play of such delight! This was no gameplan by a performing monkey! This was football I had never seen. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing. It seemed to me that I was seeing the football of God."

"...and football...played as no football is ever played. Displace one player...and there would be diminishment. Displace one line, and the structure would fall. It was clear to me that the football I had seen against West Coast was no accident. Here again was the very football of God."

 

[Enviable Tradition]

"Extraordinary! On the field it looked nothing! The structure simple, almost comic. Just a solitary key forward. A resting ruck, high forwards - like a rusty squeezebox. And then, suddenly, pushing forward, a midfielder. A single player, hanging there, unwavering. Until a high back pushed forward as well, sweetened it into a play of such delight! This was no gameplan by a performing monkey! This was football I had never seen. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing. It seemed to me that I was seeing the football of God."

"...and football...played as no football is ever played. Displace one player...and there would be diminishment. Displace one line, and the structure would fall. It was clear to me that the football I had seen against West Coast was no accident. Here again was the very football of God."

Surely an all knowing all conquering God could manage 2 good games in a row.

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[PowerLil]

And you think we can establish elite standards, a strong system and the ability to develop players to play in that system without spending the capital of time on it, do you? That it’s just going to happen in one or two seasons?

This is what Ken Hinkley meant when he said that we’ve got a long way to go before we reach Richmond. What he meant was that Port Adelaide as a club needs to have the ability to pick the best performing players from the SANFL and know that they will perform in the AFL, to have that commitment to elite standards regardless of where they are playing.

Chris Scott came into a club that was already one of the most professional in the league. All he needed to do was say “This is how we are playing now” and everyone adjusted accordingly. He also had access to one of the best recruiters in the game with an extensive scouting network that could find gems late in the draft.

Ken Hinkley came into a club that is still one of the most unprofessional in the league, where the president continually looks back to where we have come from instead of where we are going. He had access to a scouting network that recommended Mitch Harvey as being a good pick up.

Like I said, chalk and cheese.

If that is the case, why the immediate improvement in 13 & 14 then the progressive decline under the Hinkley watch?

 

[Janus]

If that is the case, why the immediate improvement in 13 & 14 then the progressive decline under the Hinkley watch?

When standards are set for the first time, there is always a flurry of excitement to reach them. Professionalism isn’t about meeting performance standards, because that’s what education and training does, but maintaining them.

The bar is supposed to be set progressively higher, but after 2014 we never reached the same level of commitment to maintaining standards from the entire playing group. It became about individual performances - the unrewarded running for each other wasn’t there anymore.

Dermott Brereton said back before the 2015 season started that if Port was to hit for a flag based on the game style we played in 2013/14, it had to be within three years because as the playing group got older for no success they would start to say “I don’t feel like running myself into the ground for no reason.”

He said three years from that point, meaning 2015-2017. In turned out to be three years total - 2013-2015.

 

[El_Scorcho]

When standards are set for the first time, there is always a flurry of excitement to reach them. Professionalism isn’t about meeting performance standards, because that’s what education and training does, but maintaining them.

The bar is supposed to be set progressively higher, but after 2014 we never reached the same level of commitment to maintaining standards from the entire playing group. It became about individual performances - the unrewarded running for each other wasn’t there anymore.

Dermott Brereton said back before the 2015 season started that if Port was to hit for a flag based on the game style we played in 2013/14, it had to be within three years because as the playing group got older for no success they would start to say “I don’t feel like running myself into the ground for no reason.”

He said three years from that point, meaning 2015-2017. In turned out to be three years total - 2013-2015.

This is going to sound like the worst sort of revisionist Hinkley hating garbage, but the issues we were having were really already apparent in 2014, and we were talking about them right near the start of that season.

2014 is remembered with rose coloured glassed because it's the only time we've looked anywhere approaching good in over a decade. It was a great year considering where we'd been in 2012, and it should have certainly been a stepping stone to greater things, but we needed to continue improving to do so, which we didn't do.

The structural issues were already on show then and there, but were wallpapered over by wins. The canary in the coal mine dropping of Butcher for the round 4 Brisbane pasting. Trengove and Carlile getting injured in the Showdown and then being replaced for the game against Essendon the following week by Young and O'Shea, leaving Clurey out.

4-7 in the 2nd half of the year. The two finals were genuinely great performances but the 2nd half of the season overall was quite bad.

Certainly teams run harder when they believe the running will achieve something, and for most of 2014 it did. It stopped in 2015 when every other team in the league bought into our hype and started setting up with +2 in defence to stop the slingshot. Then the running slowed because of diminishing returns.

The elite standards dropped after that because Ken had well and truly fallen in love with his playing list and the gold passes were out in force. The selection policy has been wildly inconsistent throughout, with bizarre selection decisions every season. We certainly could have dipped into our depth a lot more than we did to test it out. We certainly had a pretty high performing SANFL side in the 2014-2017 era.

 

[Schulzenfest]

I still remember cleaning up on Sportsbet for that 2014 Essendon game. Odds were something like $5.50 but as soon as I saw the selected teams I knew we'd be up against it.

 

[El_Scorcho]

I still remember cleaning up on Sportsbet for that 2014 Essendon game. Odds were something like $5.50 but as soon as I saw the selected teams I knew we'd be up against it.

Yep. I got on at $5 and it was basically free money. I think that's still the most i've ever bet on a Port game because it was such juicy odds given our selections.

 

[Enviable Tradition]

Yep. I got on at $5 and it was basically free money. I think that's still the most i've ever bet on a Port game because it was such juicy odds given our selections.

I'd love to see a Port coached side that can deal with expectation and take advantage of opportunity.

This week the ladder has opened up beautifully for us to take advantage of and cement ourselves in the 8.

You know how we react to that though...

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[Butters Made Me Do It]

i wonder how many times ken has to flunk out before the board realises we aren’t the Mighty Ducks

 

[dirty2]

One day we will have the joy of watching ports with a game plan...

 

[Power Raid]

Sadly I've lost heart in PAFC at the moment, just like Motlop

 

[El_Scorcho]

i wonder how many times ken has to flunk out before the board realises we aren’t the Mighty Ducks

We sort of are the pre-Adam Banks Mighty Ducks.

 

[ozph1870]

Players picked on form.
Structure that doesn't fall apart under pressure.
Being able to hit three or four targets in a row.
Not being out muscled by every team that isn't gold coast or struck down with illness.

 

[Enviable Tradition]

I'd love to see a Port coached side that can deal with expectation and take advantage of opportunity.

This week the ladder has opened up beautifully for us to take advantage of and cement ourselves in the 8.

You know how we react to that though...

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BigFooty.com mobile app

Ugh.

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[AwwThatsApples]

Where's the thread bump?

I think the biggest thing to take from the Cats win was our ability to play four good quarters without running out of steam, and clearly, that was a focal point of focus for Ken leading up to the game. We've played a consistent game, now we need to play a consistent season.

 

[Lawnchair Larry]

Where's the thread bump?

I think the biggest thing to take from the Cats win was our ability to play four good quarters without running out of steam, and clearly, that was a focal point of focus for Ken leading up to the game. We've played a consistent game, now we need to play a consistent season.

Error minimisation is the key to us not running out of steam.
We spend so much energy countering errors it's not funny.
The moment we start to populate the team with super ball users like Houston and Burton and to a lesser extent Farrell (Kane, please find more of the ball to exercise that skill), the more we will challenge the very best.

 

[tribey]

Where's the thread bump?

For the love of god, could you at least try not to jinx whatever it is we currently have with premature schadenfreude (despite the club being in this position a dozen times before and it being a false dawn across 2015-present)?