When the rest of the football world jumped out of its seat as the 20-year-old rose high above his St Kilda opponent in Sean Dempster and hung onto the best mark this season, Hinkley didn't even double take.
More than the mark itself, he praised the wonderfully weighted kick from acting skipper Brad Ebert that made the leap possible.
On top of Hinkley's subdued reaction to the spectacular mark, his preference for the way Sam Gray and Jarman Impey responded after straying into the path of a runaway Tom Simpkin further highlighted the club's team-first mentality.
Five talking points: Port Adelaide v St Kilda
Gray (76kg) and Impey (78kg) had no right to jump straight to their feet apparently unaffected after taking the full force of the 92kg Simpkin, yet they did.
Wingard's mark was special – but his coach would take toughness any day of the week.
"On one quick look at [the mark] I thought it was a pretty handy catch," Hinkley said with a grin.
"I saw (Jeremy) Howe take one last week up at Alice Springs…Chad has a bit of a habit of doing it as well.
"I'm pretty hard on the players as far as when they get hit – it's not fair to be honest because they're getting put under a fair bit of physical punishment out there.
"It's a great sign when your players get off the ground as quick as they can, don't stay down, get up."
Defensively, Hinkley said the Power were back to their best against the Saints on Saturday night, keeping the struggling team to just nine goals and running out 70-point winners.
Even during the second quarter when the game looked to be swinging St Kilda's way, he maintained faith in his players' defensive ability.
After leaking seven first-half goals last week against Melbourne and nine second-half goals against Hawthorn the week before, Hinkley was ecstatic with the Power's four-quarter lock-down effort.
"We don't hide away from the fact that we haven't played our best defensive football for the last couple of weeks, or three or four weeks, and we needed to make sure we got that right tonight," he said.
"We kicked those late goals [in the second term] but at half time we'd held them to 29 points…if you can do that for two halves it's going to be really hard to kick a wining score.
"That was pleasing."
Hinkley will fly to the Gold Coast on Sunday to watch next week's opponent, the Sydney Swans, closely.
In particular he'll keep an eye on in-form forwards Lance Franklin and Kurt Tippett.
Given the Swans' current form, the game will provide Hinkley and his players with their greatest test so far this season.
"I'm going go jump on the plane and go watch them (Franklin and Tippett) tomorrow with 'Nicksy' (Matthew Nicks) and Josh Carr, so we're going to get a good first-hand look at them," he said.
"We watched them really closely last week, we had people up there looking at them last week…doesn't mean we're going to be able to stop them or them stop us.
"It's just a matter of making sure we're really well prepared."
Twitter: @AFL_Harry
Gray (76kg) and Impey (78kg) had no right to jump straight to their feet apparently unaffected after taking the full force of the 92kg Simpkin, yet they did.
Wingard's mark was special – but his coach would take toughness any day of the week.
"On one quick look at [the mark] I thought it was a pretty handy catch," Hinkley said with a grin.
"I saw (Jeremy) Howe take one last week up at Alice Springs…Chad has a bit of a habit of doing it as well.
"I'm pretty hard on the players as far as when they get hit – it's not fair to be honest because they're getting put under a fair bit of physical punishment out there.
"It's a great sign when your players get off the ground as quick as they can, don't stay down, get up."
Defensively, Hinkley said the Power were back to their best against the Saints on Saturday night, keeping the struggling team to just nine goals and running out 70-point winners.
Even during the second quarter when the game looked to be swinging St Kilda's way, he maintained faith in his players' defensive ability.
After leaking seven first-half goals last week against Melbourne and nine second-half goals against Hawthorn the week before, Hinkley was ecstatic with the Power's four-quarter lock-down effort.
"We don't hide away from the fact that we haven't played our best defensive football for the last couple of weeks, or three or four weeks, and we needed to make sure we got that right tonight," he said.
"We kicked those late goals [in the second term] but at half time we'd held them to 29 points…if you can do that for two halves it's going to be really hard to kick a wining score.
"That was pleasing."
Hinkley will fly to the Gold Coast on Sunday to watch next week's opponent, the Sydney Swans, closely.
In particular he'll keep an eye on in-form forwards Lance Franklin and Kurt Tippett.
Given the Swans' current form, the game will provide Hinkley and his players with their greatest test so far this season.
"I'm going go jump on the plane and go watch them (Franklin and Tippett) tomorrow with 'Nicksy' (Matthew Nicks) and Josh Carr, so we're going to get a good first-hand look at them," he said.
"We watched them really closely last week, we had people up there looking at them last week…doesn't mean we're going to be able to stop them or them stop us.
"It's just a matter of making sure we're really well prepared."
Twitter: @AFL_Harry
