PORT Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley says his side was beaten by the best team in the competition this year, after Sydney made light work of the Power in Friday night’s preliminary final at the SCG.
Hinkley was measured in his post-game press conference after Port Adelaide’s season ended in the Harbour City, seven days after the club produced arguably its greatest finals win since the 2004 Grand Final victory over Brisbane.
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The Swans led from early in the first quarter and dominated the middle two terms, reaching the final break 40 points up before coasting to a 36-point win to book a fifth Grand Final appearance under John Longmire.
“Right now, it is really disappointing. We came up here playing off for a Grand Final. We know how hard that is to do. We, as a footy club, know that more than any. It’s disappointing,” Hinkley said on Friday night.
“I thought as a club we stuck together pretty well through the whole year and gave ourselves again right to this point of the season. The story will be around ‘we failed to get there’, but we had a decent crack to get there. This team had 11 different players than our last prelim team.
“They deserve to win, they deserve to play next week, they were the best team all year. Tonight they made us pay off turnover; it was a game of efficiency; they were just too clean when they had their chances. We just didn’t have enough weapons to cause problems in the front half.
"They were the best team in the competition and finished on top of the ladder for a reason. We knew we were going to have to be absolutely at our best and we just weren’t capable of going with them tonight.”
Port Adelaide has now lost all four preliminary finals since Hinkley was appointed at the end of 2012 – 2014 by three points to Hawthorn, 2020 by six points to Richmond and 2021 by 71 points to the Western Bulldogs, before the loss on Friday night.
“I’m not silly enough not to acknowledge that I have been the constant, along with some other people at the footy club. But it’s not a one-person thing, we should stop that story; this is a whole of club thing that goes on, not one person responsible,” Hinkley said.
“If we had have got through tonight, it wouldn’t have been me and if we didn’t get through tonight it wouldn’t have been me, it would have been us. That’s the language we like to use at Port.
“It’s about us not me, but I do understand that as the head coach you do cop the brunt of that and I’m OK with copping the brunt, but the reality is you can’t do this without a full club. No one person is going to do it on his own. You need the whole footy club.”
Hinkley acknowledged the challenges he has faced in 2024, including the focus of the past week after his post-game interaction with Jack Ginnivan and James Sicily after last Friday night’s win over Hawthorn, but said he knows it is part and parcel of the gig.
“I’ve had great support, from my family particularly, but also from my footy club,” he said.
“We stick at it; we understand the storylines that go with my position; it is part of the job, I’m OK with that. I don’t necessarily enjoy it, but the reality is it is part of what I do. If I can’t cope, I shouldn’t be here.”
Port Adelaide veterans Travis Boak and Charlie Dixon are yet to sign contracts for 2025 and will make decisions in the coming weeks.
