Ken’s men dig deep
Fitting win on big day for Hinkley
KEN Hinkley has described Port Adelaide’s gritty 17-point win over Greater Western Sydney fought out in an “arm wrestle”, as proof his side deserves to be on top of the AFL ladder.
The win, he said, was a fitting response to its 37-point defeat at the hands of Brisbane a week earlier, particularly considering his players were up at 4.30am on Sunday to fly out of Adelaide.
“I think we’re a good team, I think we’re getting to where we want to go and I think good teams respond and good teams win after they’ve had a poor performance … that’s really pleasing against quality opposition,” Hinkley said.
“We’re on top of the ladder, we deserve to be on top of the ladder.”
The win was a fitting celebration for Hinkley, who with his 165th game as Power coach became an AFL life member for notching up a combined 300 games as player and coach. As his players walked off the ground, Hinkley stood at the doors inside the Metricon Stadium change rooms and high-fived each of them as they came inside.
The jovial players and his assistant coaches then pushed him into the middle of the circle as they belted out the Power’s song, cheering and clapping and dousing him in sports drinks.
Hinkley praised the performance of 21-year-old midfielder Kane Farrell, who not only kicked a goal midway through the final term to pull the Power further in front, but picked up 19 touches and laid six tackles.
“He’s a real good story for us because he’s 15 games in and to kick a goal like that in a high-quality match — it was an arm-wrestle match — to do it at big moments, that’s important,” he said
“He’s an elite kick, a really nice finisher of the ball, but what I like most about him is he’s worked hard on other parts of his game.
“His kick’s his weapon, but he’s worked really hard on his ground ball contests, his tackle contests, all the things that make you a really good AFL player and I’m really pleased with his improvement this year.”
Hinkley said his side was the better team for the best part of the day, despite the turnover-heavy play and uncharacteristic mistakes from the likes of Connor Rozee and Zak Butters.
“We gave the ball away 20 more times than they did and I thought our efficiency going forward really hurt us,” he said.
“To GWS’s credit they played a really strong third quarter and they are a great team, I think premiership favourites coming into this round, but I thought we really did control the game for large parts and we didn’t probably have that reflection on the scoreboard because we turned the ball over.
“(But overall) I was really proud of the way we played a really strong game of footy today.”
Boak, Amon, Gray, Motlop, Dixon, PowellPepper, Farrell, Marshall, Butters.
Cameron 2, Greene, Whitfield, Finlayson, Ash.
Farrell, Boak, Hartlett, Powell-Pepper, Houston, Amon
Whitfield, Coniglio, Haynes, Greene, Cameron. Metricon Stadium