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PORT ADELAIDE is pleased to announce Ken Hinkley as its new senior coach from 2013, with his arrival at Alberton among three key appointments heralding a significant restructure of the club’s football program.
Hinkley joins the Power on a four-year contract and brings stand-out credentials to the role together with a record of coaching success spanning 17 years since the end of his playing career as a dual All Australian defender with Geelong.
The 46-year-old has spent 10 years as an assistant coach at AFL level, including six seasons at Geelong where he was an influential part of that cub’s rebuild and experienced premiership success in 2007 and 2009.
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He has spent the past three seasons on the Gold Coast Suns coaching panel, guiding the club’s young talent. Hinkley served at St Kilda in 2001 in a support role to Malcolm Blight before coaching premierships in his own right in Victorian development leagues.
Hinkley joins a strengthened football program at the Port Adelaide Football Club which also announces the following major appointments:
• ALAN RICHARDSON - DIRECTOR OF COACHING & STRATEGY
• DARREN BURGESS - HIGH PERFORMANCE MANAGER
Richardson - who himself has nine years of coaching box experience at AFL level, including a serving as senior assistant at Carlton in 2011 - joins the club in a unique newly-created role. He will serve as senior assistant to Hinkley while managing and developing the coaching resources at Port Adelaide from SANFL to AFL level.
Burgess was head of fitness at Port Adelaide for three seasons (2005 to 2007) and returns to Alberton with world class expertise, innovation and experience gained from five years in international sport with the Socceroos and most recently the Liverpool Football Club.
Port Adelaide CEO Keith Thomas said the appointments represented a powerful renewal of the club’s football program that would underpin an unrelenting drive for on-field success.
“We have built a new structure for a new and very exciting era at the Port Adelaide Football Club,” Thomas said.
“We are bringing into our club three of the most impressive and credentialed men we could have hoped to assemble.
“Ken Hinkley, Alan Richardson and Darren Burgess have an extraordinary mix of experience and expertise and they share a vision of and a commitment to the success demanded at Port Adelaide.
“They will work with all of our existing coaches and football staff together with our fitness and medical team to do get the very best out of our players .
“Alan’s role will be unique in football in that it will allow us to nurture and develop our own coaching and conditioning staff from the SANFL levels right through to the AFL. We will create a teaching environment for coaches unlike any other and it will allow us to foster our own talent in an era where the cost of involvement in the football arms race is enormous.”
The Board of the Port Adelaide Football Club endorsed the appointment of Hinkley, who was identified and recommended by a selection panel led by Thomas and consisting of experts including external contributors Peter Schwab and Tom Harley with advice from David Parkin.
“Through the selection process, we had two options - to appoint an experienced senior coach or go for a first-time AFL coach with an enhanced structure around him.
“What we have come out is what we believe is the best possible solution and one that enhances Port Adelaide at many levels.
“In appointing Ken Hinkley as our senior coach, we have acquired a man who knows what it takes to win premierships at the highest level and who played a key part in Geelong’s transformation and journey to success in what remains an imposing era.
“Ken comes to us with a great deal of experience and as someone who has been widely recognised as a senior AFL coach in waiting. Like Ken, Alan Richardson is a 100-plus game player and also has the experience and reputation to match Ken. Together they are a formidable partnership.
“Add a high performance manager like Darren Burgess - with his qualifications, exposure to elite international environments and his previous experience at Port Adelaide and knowledge of our club - and we have no doubt that we have added enormously to our existing resources.”
[ Related: Hinkley committed to success ]
Hinkley said he was honoured to be appointed as the fourth coach in Port Adelaide’s AFL history, following from John Cahill, Mark Williams and Matthew Primus.
“It’s a great opportunity for me having worked as hard as I have in 17 years of coaching to reach the point where I have the chance to do it at senior level in the AFL,” Hinkley said.
“But to be given the opportunity to be a part of a great club in Port Adelaide is just a wonderful thing for anyone,” Hinkley said.
“Port Adelaide is such a proud club. It has a long history, albeit a short one in its AFL life. But it has a history of being strong and successful and has incredibly passionate supporters and I am just honoured to be a part of that.
“We’ve got a young list that is eager to develop and to achieve success. I’ve got every confidence that we can continue to develop and add to that list and I’ve also got every confidence in the people we have at the club to maximise that list.”
Richardson said he was excited to join Port Adelaide and work alongside Hinkley.
“Given I played for the Collingwood Magpies, I was well aware of Port Adelaide and there’s always been a real respect for the club,” Richardson said.
“Obviously, historically, there’s enormous respect because of the success of the club. You think of Port Adelaide and you just think of premierships.
“I’m really excited to work with Ken. He’s got incredible respect in the footy industry for what he’s done in his time, particulary with Geelong but also with the build - rather than the rebuild - of the Gold Coast Suns.
“I think both of those experiences mean that he’s going to be an outstanding coach here.”
Burgess said that after five years in international soccer he was excited to be returning to AFL and coming back to Port Adelaide.
[ Related: Burgess returns home to Alberton ]
“The motivation to return to AFL was always there and once I knew the opportunity with Port Adelaide was definitely there it was always going to be hard to turn down,” Burgess said.
“It’s nice to work in a competition as challenging and elite as the AFL, but it’s even better when you support and are passionate about the team you are working for.
“The experiences I have had while I’ve been away have been immense in terms of what I’ve learned about what goes into preparing to perform at the highest levels and the changing ways in which athletes and teams go about that.
“I look forward to bringing that back along with some real experience with athletes who I know the players at Alberton look up to personally, and whose preparation can be an example.”
Hinkley, Richardson and Burgess have been briefed and brought into discussions about Port Adelaide’s intentions and needs during the AFL Trade Period which begins today.
They will start work at Port Adelaide during October before joining the other coaching staff and players on a pre-season trip to Europe culminating with a game against the Western Bulldogs at London’s Kia Oval on Saturday 3 November.
Hinkley said he was honoured to be appointed as the fourth coach in Port Adelaide’s AFL history, following from John Cahill, Mark Williams and Matthew Primus.
“It’s a great opportunity for me having worked as hard as I have in 17 years of coaching to reach the point where I have the chance to do it at senior level in the AFL,” Hinkley said.
“But to be given the opportunity to be a part of a great club in Port Adelaide is just a wonderful thing for anyone,” Hinkley said.
“Port Adelaide is such a proud club. It has a long history, albeit a short one in its AFL life. But it has a history of being strong and successful and has incredibly passionate supporters and I am just honoured to be a part of that.
“We’ve got a young list that is eager to develop and to achieve success. I’ve got every confidence that we can continue to develop and add to that list and I’ve also got every confidence in the people we have at the club to maximise that list.”
Richardson said he was excited to join Port Adelaide and work alongside Hinkley.
“Given I played for the Collingwood Magpies, I was well aware of Port Adelaide and there’s always been a real respect for the club,” Richardson said.
“Obviously, historically, there’s enormous respect because of the success of the club. You think of Port Adelaide and you just think of premierships.
“I’m really excited to work with Ken. He’s got incredible respect in the footy industry for what he’s done in his time, particulary with Geelong but also with the build - rather than the rebuild - of the Gold Coast Suns.
“I think both of those experiences mean that he’s going to be an outstanding coach here.”
Burgess said that after five years in international soccer he was excited to be returning to AFL and coming back to Port Adelaide.
[ Related: Burgess returns home to Alberton ]
“The motivation to return to AFL was always there and once I knew the opportunity with Port Adelaide was definitely there it was always going to be hard to turn down,” Burgess said.
“It’s nice to work in a competition as challenging and elite as the AFL, but it’s even better when you support and are passionate about the team you are working for.
“The experiences I have had while I’ve been away have been immense in terms of what I’ve learned about what goes into preparing to perform at the highest levels and the changing ways in which athletes and teams go about that.
“I look forward to bringing that back along with some real experience with athletes who I know the players at Alberton look up to personally, and whose preparation can be an example.”
Hinkley, Richardson and Burgess have been briefed and brought into discussions about Port Adelaide’s intentions and needs during the AFL Trade Period which begins today.
They will start work at Port Adelaide during October before joining the other coaching staff and players on a pre-season trip to Europe culminating with a game against the Western Bulldogs at London’s Kia Oval on Saturday 3 November.
