PORT ADELAIDE senior coach Ken Hinkley knew the importance of a good performance against Fremantle, regardless of whether his side could feature in September or not.
Port were extremely disappointing against North Melbourne the week prior, and Hinkley knew the way his side responded would be telling for the football club.
The Power defeated the Dockers by 43 points - dominating the inside 50 count in the process - and the senior coach says the way his side responded and represented the club on Sunday evening was very pleasing.
“We didn’t speak about what the result meant to the ladder,” Hinkley said at his post-match press conference.
“We spoke about what the result meant to us as a football club, and how we’ve worked this year and a response to what our performance was like last week.
“It was a disastrous performance by us last week, so we didn’t care - we said that on Monday - we didn’t care whether we were or weren’t in the race.
“What we care about is how we represent the footy club, this great footy club. If it was for one last time, then we represent it the right way, and tonight I thought we did that.”
Despite setting out to play finals in season 2019 and not achieving that, Hinkley is extremely optimistic about what the future holds at Alberton.
“There is some real optimism around what some of the people are capable of doing,” he said.
“As long as they continue to work hard - nothing is given to you in this game, if you drop off you won’t improve.
“There’s some opportunity for senior people to get better. There’s some opportunity for younger people to get better. There’s an opportunity for the coaches to get better.
“If we don’t look to what those opportunities are and go really hard after them, we will find ourselves slipping.”
The club has made some significant change over the last few seasons. Both youth and experience has been injected into the group along with new coaches, and the 52-year-old says there is a real connection.
“I’m optimistic about 62 games into three first-year draft choices,” Hinkley said.
“Six debutants. Two new players in Lycett and Burton into the club. Change of leadership.
“There is a lot of optimism and connection between this group of players. I’ve been really surprised with how the group’s felt, even though we are 11-11.
“I’ve really felt like they’ve stuck at it all year. We’ve had some bad moments, but we’ve also had some good moments.”
There has been media speculation about Hinkley’s future at Port Adelaide, but the senior coach says he is committed to satisfying the passionate Port Adelaide members and supporters.
“When you work inside, you absolutely get to have those conversations regularly about where we are and what we’re doing,” he said.
“We made a commitment to make some change and we followed through on the change. We get that we have to go further to satisfy our passionate people.
“That’s what I want to do. I want to satisfy. I don’t want them to accept where we are. I want us to be passionate enough to want to get better, and we will get better.”
