During the off-season, the club had assistant coaches Chad Cornes – my brother and 2004 premiership teammate at Port Adelaide – and Nathan Bassett swap roles. This has had a profound impact on the team’s form.
Bassett, a hard-nosed defender at the Crows, now leads an undersized defensive unit. Cornes, a club great as a defender and forward, has taken charge of the forwards.
Cornes has worked with a unit needing refits to deal with significant injuries to first-choice players Charlie Dixon, Todd Marshall, Orazio Fantasia, and Mitch Georgiades. At the same time, recruit Junior Rioli spent three matches on the sidelines suspended.
The players called on to fill the gaps have been handed a simple challenge: Don’t get outmarked. The expectation is they will bring the ball to the ground and apply fierce pressure. The buy-in from the unheralded such as Jed McEntee, Ollie Lord and defender-cum-forward Darcy Byrne-Jones has been stunning.
Port Adelaide’s forwards rush into the change rooms after a game ignoring how many goals an individual has kicked. They are most keen to know how many intercept marks they have limited the opposition to and how many forward-50 tackles they have made.
These three factors and the way that they attack the contest is all that the forward group is judged on.
Port Adelaide ranked 18th for intercept marks taken inside their forward-50 zone against top-eight sides last season. This year they are No.1. Additionally, they sit in the top four for forward-50 pressure and tackles.
Future senior coach Josh Carr returned to Alberton to mentor the midfielders and has made an immediate impression. Despite injuries and poor form affecting the ruck stocks, the Power rank No.1 for scores from stoppages.
Bullocking midfielders Ollie Wines and Willem Drew bring an imposing physical presence and clearly understand their bash-and-crash roles.
The flow-on from their stoppage dominance has Port Adelaide ranked No.1 in the league this year for time in the forward half, which allows Bassett’s defensive group to set up solidly behind the ball and protect the defenders from being exposed in too many one-on-one duels with bigger opponents.
When Port Adelaide do win possession, they play a scintillating style built on moving the ball forward with speed at every opportunity.
They rank No.3 in transitioning the ball from defensive 50 to forward 50 and sit fourth for total points scored.
An underrated aspect of the team’s success and culture is the stability of the fitness and medical department, which has worked closely together for more than a decade.
Lead doctor Mark Fisher, physiotherapists Tim O’Leary and Mike Heynen and high-performance boss Stuart Graham are all at the top of their fields. They also fit into the locker room and buy into team banter and are not afraid to have fun.
Renowned football boss Chris Davies has been the architect, too, of much of the successful refit of the football department. He is demanding but fair with his expectations and standards for the players and coaches. Davies is unflappable.
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He provides a stable sounding board for Hinkley. Davies also knew his coach would be facing immense scrutiny throughout this season. He ensured those supporting Hinkley in the football department were of the highest character. He and Hinkley wanted the environment to be enjoyable; the game plan fits this theme by being more attacking.
Club president David Koch said last weekend on 3AW that he hopes Hinkley is the coach well into the future.
“I hope Ken is a 20-year coach for Port Adelaide, but we are in a performance situation, and it depends on Ken as well,” he said.
Hinkley – out of loyalty to his players – would sign a contract extension tomorrow if it was placed in front of him. A 10th consecutive win on Friday night – so soon after Tredrea saw an untenable existence between club and coach – might just force Koch’s hand.
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