PORT ADELAIDE coach Ken Hinkley says his team is not the “fast-moving, sexy-looking” football side the media has been talking it up to be.
The Power improved their record to 4-3 on Sunday with an impressive 77-point win over the Brisbane Lions that continued an upward trend in form which began against Richmond the previous weekend.
Port Adelaide kicked 18 goals after quarter-time and looked close to its attacking best, but Hinkley was quick to quash talk of “sexy” football.
Instead, he said Port had begun turning its season around by stripping the game plan back and playing the honest, hard-working football the club built its reputation upon in the SANFL.
"The last couple of weeks we’ve made progress by just executing team roles," Hinkley said.
"We’ve connected together and said 'there’s a way that we have to play for us'.
"Everyone has tried to talk us up as being a fast-moving, sexy-looking football side. We’re not that.
"We’ve just got to be honest and I said that to the boys. Honest, respectful and humble is what Port Adelaide are and that’s how we have to stay.
"Some will challenge that over the journey about Port, over a long period of time but I think that’s what our football club stands for."
Hinkley was reluctant to label Sunday’s effort a return to form and said the Power instead was “starting to move in the right direction.”
But he said he had noticed a shift in his players’ attitudes on the training track in the past fortnight and believed they had refocused.
"I’d be lying if I said 'no' (there hasn’t been a change in the vibe at the club)," Hinkley said.
"I think they’re understanding what they want to be as well as who they think they are.
"It’s easy to get distracted in this game, it is really easy, and we don’t want to be in that space but sometimes it happens.
"As a team at the moment we're starting to move in the right direction. We're starting to make the wheel move again. It's been stuck for a while and we're just pushing and pushing and maybe it moved a fraction for us."
Sunday’s match was marred by several deliberate out-of-bounds decisions. Hinkley said he believed the umpires were consistent with the rule and had no complaints.
"I know there was a lot in the game, I don’t know (if) there was too many bad ones," he said.
"I think everyone could sense when it was going to happen and that makes it easier to read, if it is quite predictable."
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