Hinkley on Port’s injury list:
“You’re always challenged.
“The game always challenges you. It’s just the volume and where they sit in the pecking order a little bit for us.
“We’ve probably got eight of our best 10-12 players unavailable, but we’ll be okay, we’ll get some back.
“What we are seeing because of that, is we get to produce opportunities for people who are underneath, who have been at times struggling to get their opportunities.
“There are always some good things that come out of injuries.
“That’s what we always look at, what do we get to see here? We get to see young people play. We get to see people get an opportunity that they perhaps normally haven’t had.
Hinkley on Dougal Howard’s starting position against the Suns:
“He’s been performing pretty well as a defender.
“It worked really well as an in-game shock tactic (against the Crows).
“We have a pretty strong, young backline and we think they work pretty well together.
“They are things we weigh up and we have to decide what’s best and what our options are to have someone who can do some damage up at the front end.
“At the moment, we would prefer to still stay with Dougal as a defender.
Hinkley on Robbie Gray and Brad Ebert:
“Even out there today, you could nearly put him out there (against the Suns).
“Because he has dealt with a couple of things, we just feel like taking the extra week for him is the right thing to do.
“Otherwise we would be rushing him probably a little bit ahead of schedule and that would be a little unfair on him.
“We won’t know (about Brad) until we get those results back.
“This is us being cautious as a football club and being very careful with how handle anything that goes along with a head knock.
“That’s the really important thing for us to understand, is that with Brad we are making sure that he is okay and that everything is alright.
“When we do that and get all of the information, then we will have better information for everyone.
Hinkley on what Joel Garner will bring if selected:
“He’s a reliable defender who’s hard and tough in the contest. Everyone loves playing with Joel.
“He’s been a leader in every stage of his life, he’s been a good leader - whether that be school, whether that be under 18 football, whether that be state football at all levels.
“He’s always been one of the people who straight away falls into leadership positions.
“He would provide great leadership even though he is a young player - he’s got great composure.
Hinkley on Gold Coast:
“They have been playing a really strong brand of footy.
“I think Stewy (Stuart Dew) and the team up there have done a terrific job, because I don’t think people gave them lots of promising outlooks at the start of this year.
“They’ve done enormously well. They’ve been in every game they’ve played basically.
“We expect that there will be a really strong, hard contest and it will be a good game.
