PORT ADELAIDE senior coach Ken Hinkley was as disappointed as anyone associated with the club after Saturday night’s 86-point loss to North Melbourne at Marvel Stadium.
Hinkley says he takes the lion’s share of responsibility for the capitulation to the Kangaroos, but insists the playing group and coaching staff are strongly connected.
“We are a footy club. We aren’t a coach and players. We stick together,” Hinkley said on SEN SA’s Breakfast program on Tuesday morning.
“We’ve done that all year. I will never say anything other than I’m part of the team. I’m a significant part of the team, and if anything, I should take most of the blame, and I will do that.
“I don’t shy away from that as coach of the club. I’m here to help the players, and the rest of the coaches are here to help the players to perform at their best.
“Clearly we didn’t get that out of them on the weekend.”
The senior coach admits the performance on the weekend was as bad as any in his tenure at the club, and he says there is no shying away from that.
“There’s no hiding from it, we were really poor,” Hinkley said.
“It’s as bad a performance as we’ve had, probably in my time at the club. It was a critical part of the season.
“We aren’t hiding from the fact that there was not one part of the game where we could say we were competitive or satisfied with.
“It was a number done on us by the Kangaroos. We should’ve been and had to be better, but we didn’t play the game we needed to.”
There has been plenty of speculation about Hinkley’s contract in the media, and the 52-year-old was open and honest about performance clauses in his contract.
He said he was confident of fulfilling his term at Alberton.
“I’m quite happy to say my contract has clauses in it,” he said.
“Everyone’s contract has some type of clause in it, and if you don’t perform, you don’t deserve to get the add-ons of the contract.
“I am more than comfortable and accept the responsibility of performance. If we don’t perform that well, well then, it’s probably that time.
“From my point of view, I’m really confident that’s not the case, and I’m really confident in this group.
“I know and I think we can perform at a very high level consistently in the near future. I’m very comfortable that I will fulfil the entire part of my contract, and possibly more if that’s what we can do as a football club.”
