Shock and awe as Power breaks drought
Travis Boak was playing his 10th game when Port Adelaide last won at Kardinia Park.
Ken Hinkley was assistant coach for Geelong that day in 2007 when Power midfielder Dom Cassisi kicked the winning goal with three seconds left.
It broke a run of 16 consecutive wins at home for the Cats but that famous victory lost a bit of its gloss a month later when Geelong set a record winning margin in the grand final, flogging Port by 119 points.
The Power had been back to Kardinia Park nine times since Cassisi’s heroics without success.
For Hinkley these games are personal. He had a great playing career with Geelong and then was part of two flags as part of Mark Thompson’s coaching group.
He has a great affinity for the place but there is also a bit of a chip on his shoulder for wanting to show his coaching genius against his old friends.
Last year he was particularly animated after a close 12point loss in round 21 when he brought a decimated team through illness and injury to town and nearly got the chocolates.
He certainly had the underdog narrative happening again on Friday night with Port entering Kardinia Park with five changes, including the loss of captain Connor Rozee.
And he was coming up against a Cats team which had only lost their first game for the season last week. No one really gave them a chance, which is exactly how Hinkley liked it.
So he had his troops frothing and they came out an inspired team, kicking the opening four goals of the game in the first nine minutes.
That set the tone for an extraordinary first half that saw the visitors kick 12 goals to five and lead by 41 points at the main break.
There were touches of Hinkley magic everywhere. He sent the unheralded Jed McEntee to acting Geelong captain Tom Stewart with the directive to annoy the hell out of him.
That worked a treat and with one of the Cats’ key weapons off his tucker, the rest were left to fumble around while the likes of Jason Horne-Francis, Ollie Wines, Zak Butters and Willie Rioli ran riot.
Rioli was dynamic, kicking three goals in the first half and giving another away as the Power controlled proceedings which had the Cats fans silent in their new improved stadium.
At halftime Port had the top eight disposal winners on the ground and led every stats category. The best illustration of their dominance came at the 12-minute mark of the second quarter when Cats Chris Scott had seen enough and substituted ruckman Rhys Stanley who was getting shown up by fourth-gamer Dante Visentini.
Hinkley has been around long enough to know this Power blitz was too good to be true and at some stage Geelong was going to come to life. What he probably didn’t predict was Rioli to help them out with a couple of acts of madness resulting in a 100m penalty, which gave Zach Guthrie a critical goal late in the third term.
By three-quarter time the margin was down to 18 points and while there were some anxious moments, Hinkley got the win he’d been craving about for years.
So what does a win at Kardinia Park mean this time for Port Adelaide?
It shows they’ve got a bit of fortitude about them which had certainly disappeared over recent weeks with disappointing losses to Collingwood and Adelaide.
And with Hawthorn and
North Melbourne to play over the next two weeks, it’s a gutsy win that restores their topfour credentials.
But what must be even more satisfying is it gave Hinkley the chance to have the last laugh and Boak another Kardinia Park victory ... in his 355th game.