Ken Hinkley’s optimism for the future at Alberton:
“I’m optimistic about 62 games into three first-year draft choices.
“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 is some real optimism are what some of the people are capable of doing.
“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.
Hinkley on the changes over the past few years:
“I think we’ve got a pretty strong group.
“There’s a lot of support from the coaches into the group we’ve currently got. We’ve made some significant change over the last few years.
“I would’ve thought we wouldn’t make as much change as that, but the competition and the AFL make you make some change.
Hinkley on the club’s attitude heading into the game against Fremantle:
“We didn’t speak about what the result meant to the ladder.
“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.
Hinkley on media speculation and his future:
“I’m really optimistic about working with the group.
“I was always confident as a footy club that we were going to follow through. David (Koch), myself and Keith (Thomas) talk regularly.
“What happens in this game though, is the outside stuff that starts to build and gets a bit of momentum. That creates some uncertainty.
“We know what the game can be like, we’ve seen it again this week. We know how tough it can be to survive, but we also know how tough it can be to stick.
“I think this footy club made some brave decisions, and I’m sure they will get some reward for it.
“When you work inside, you absolutely get to have those conversations regularly about where we are and what we’re doing.
“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 to be passionate enough to want to get better, and we will get better.
Hinkley on the support of the board and club:
“I’ve got their support, I’ve got nothing to worry about as far as that goes.
“From the reporting that goes on sometimes, you do get some self-doubt. I’m human - I feel that and I don’t like it very often.
“When you get your players and your key personnel at your football club supporting you and wrapping their arms around you, you just know you’re on the right path, and you’re the right person to help on that path.
