Port Adelaide coach Hinkley seeks finals redemption

Hinkley was jeered by sections of the Adelaide Oval crowd after Port copped a 79-belting from Brisbane in round 16.

Days later, signs were placed on Port Road, at the turn-off to Alberton Oval: 'Sack Hinkley'.

The signs were nothing new. In July 2022, the same message was emblazoned on a sign stuck on the same turn-off.

Then, Hinkley railed.

"It's a really poor thing to do, a really weak thing to do ... every football club has great passion in it but there's a line," he said at the time.

Now, Hinkley has steered Port to second spot on the ladder and a seventh finals campaign in his 12 years in charge of the South Australian club.

Asked if the booing after the Brisbane beating had shaken him, Hinkley told Fox Footy's AFL 360 last week: "Yeah, I think so. AFL football causes you to get a little bit nervous at times.

Unhappy Power fans jeer Hinkley after the heavy round-16 loss to Brisbane at Adelaide Oval. (Matt Turner/AAP PHOTOS)

"But I have always had great support my whole time here at Port Adelaide.

"And I have got a great footy club who understand and respect the importance of staying stable and we have certainly been able to do that."

Hinkley has a winning percentage of 60.52 - behind modern master coaches Chris Scott (68.22 per cent) and John Longmire (62.88); ahead of Alastair Clarkson (55.40), Damien Hardwick (55.76) and Luke Beveridge (56.77).

The difference is those five have captured at least one premiership.

Hinkley's finals record is five wins, seven losses. And he holds the VFL/AFL record for most games coached - 271 - without reaching a grand final.

"Firstly, it's fact," he said of his unwanted record.

"So I can't deny that, it's fact. It's what is my journey of coaching at Port Adelaide.

"It does push and drive you to hopefully get a change, that this footy club can get some results that they deserve because of our persistence and our willingness to keep turning up - I think that goes a little bit undermeasured sometimes in the comp.

"But the reality is, I get it and understand that is my fate at the moment ... we have still got to get there and we have still got to do something about it."

Hinkley's healthy winning percentage hasn't spared him from criticism from Power fans. (Matt Turner/AAP PHOTOS)

Last season, Port finished third in the home-and-away season after Hinkley again weathered a storm when the club's only premiership captain Warren Tredrea said, after round three, the coach's position was "untenable".

The Power soon after went on a club-record 13-game winning streak only to bow out of the finals in proverbial straight sets: consecutive losses.

Port missed the 2022 playoffs but in 2021, after finishing second in the regular season, collapsed in a home preliminary final and lost to the Western Bulldogs by 71 points.

A year earlier, after finishing top in the home-and-away rounds, the Power lost a home prelim to Richmond by six points.

Hinkley's tenure has also included other finals heartbreak - an extra-time elimination-final loss in 2017; a 2014 preliminary-final defeat by just three points.

And in his first season at the Power helm in 2013, Hinkley's side lost a semi-final to Geelong by 16 points at the MCG.

Hinkley took some convincing from his wife to bid for the Port coaching job - he feared more disappointment after previously being overlooked for the top job at numerous clubs.

He joined Port from the Gold Coast Suns, where he was an assistant coach for three years after previous assistant roles at St Kilda and Geelong.

At the time of his appointment, Port hadn't played finals since 2007 and were receiving financial hand-outs from the AFL to stay afloat.

And Hinkley was well back in the line. Port wanted Leon Cameron but he instead chose an assistant role at Greater Western Sydney, where he would later become head coach.

Others on Port's wish-list including Mick Malthouse, Paul Roos, Brett Ratten, Rodney Eade and Scott Burns didn't want to apply for the position.

"People have said 'last man standing' - I have heard those comments," Hinkley said in his first media conference at Alberton, on October 8, 2012, when appointed Power coach.

"Maybe I was the right man standing.

"Sometimes ... there is a reason for some people to come out at the top at the right time."

A dozen years on, Hinkley hopes the time is right for a Port premiership.

"I can't pretend and tell them (Port players) that last year didn't happen or the years before didn't happen," he said after last weekend's away win over Fremantle.

"But you would have learned from them and I think that's preparing us really well and giving us a great opportunity. 

"That's what it's about: persistence and willingness to keep turning up."