First Coach Sacked?

[elephants]

Honestly you'd have to offer Clarke 20-mill a season to work with Ed. Without knowing either personally, I see them clashing like no tomorrow.

[Ringo]

Buckley, Hird and Voss great examples of players being made coaches too early after their careers and failing.  Not saying players do not make great players but need to learn the ropes.  remember the Scott Brothers were Voss's team mates and look at what they are achieving now.

[tbagrocks]

I tell you what, Port Adelaide are copping it from all angles over here! Ken Hinkley will start to come under serious pressure if they cant find a consistent competitive spirit soon!

[powersuperkents]

I tell you what, Port Adelaide are copping it from all angles over here! Ken Hinkley will start to come under serious pressure if they cant find a consistent competitive spirit soon!

It's not that at all... Hinkley & Kochie can blame the players all they want. But as long as they keep playing that stupid flowering gameplan, this will continue to happen...

He should honestly be on thin ice at this point - emotion isn't a sustainable method of eliciting performance (the players are just dogmatically following flawed orders at this point).

I'm a Port Adelaide fan at this point my predictions for us are;

1) if we change the game plan (a 10-12th place finish - if we can have a drastic turnaround with a new gameplan there's a possibility we can make finals); or
2) if we stick with the flowering thing... anywhere between 13th and 16th

At the moment I rate us better than Collingwood and Essendon.

I could see the Tiges, Freo, & possibly Carlton (they don't have the personnel but Bolton could see through our gameplan just like most coach) beating us quite easily. Demons will probably flog us as well and who knows what the Lions & the Gold Coast could do (I'm grateful that we at least get to play the Lions at Adelaide Oval).

It's not the players at all... Hinkley really should be feeling more pressure because saying "they lacked effort" is not a solution to the current problem... I respect him as a coach and appreciate everything he has done for the club. However not changing a gameplan that 1) every club knows; and 2) tires the players out in the opening 10 minutes of the game is just plain stubborn.

It's at the point in which we are a bottom team (the Saints were very unlucky not to humiliate us and if it wasn't round 1 they would have - I have no doubts about that).

I have to agree though, it's at a point where if he doesn't have a plan B... he needs to go... I suspect a lot of the players are losing motivation as well - which it common when you are fatigued and tiring yourself out for absolutely nothing...   

[PowerBug]

Interesting stat time:
Collingwood won the premiership in 2010. If you look at the last 21 premiers (from Carlton 1995 to last year) the Pies 22 that won was THE YOUNGEST of all those, with an average age around 24yo.

Since 2010 Collingwood's W/L record has decreased each season, and is looking like doing so again this year. Buckley is in his 5th? season now, the team has gotten worse. They attract whoever they want (hello Treloar and Aish just from last offseason) but they can't perform on field. I think enough time has past to say that it's the coaches fault, and he (as stated above by Asparagus) has 3 weeks to get 2 wins otherwise bye bye surely.




As for my own team, Hinkley, Burgess, Koch took the team from nowhere to a semi then a prelim. Yes things aren't working out but let's find some more facts shall we. Out of our team against Essendon were: Carlile, Monfries, Ryder, Schulz, Wingard, Hartlett, White. Total = 1,096 games. In comparison the 12 banned Bombers total 1422 games. That's a fair portion of our experience.

Let's keep going, our average age against the Giants, not too dissimilar to the age the Giants played. The average games played though? Less for Port. There's ONE player on Port's list with over 200 games (Monfries). There's 6 more with 150+ games, 3 of them were missing and will be missing for some period.

So where's the problem? Depth I guess. Gotta get more games into them that's all we can do...

I will say this though, there's no substitute for effort, and Port put in no effort on the weekend, that is inexcusable.



/end

[powersuperkents]

Interesting stat time:
Collingwood won the premiership in 2010. If you look at the last 21 premiers (from Carlton 1995 to last year) the Pies 22 that won was THE YOUNGEST of all those, with an average age around 24yo.

Since 2010 Collingwood's W/L record has decreased each season, and is looking like doing so again this year. Buckley is in his 5th? season now, the team has gotten worse. They attract whoever they want (hello Treloar and Aish just from last offseason) but they can't perform on field. I think enough time has past to say that it's the coaches fault, and he (as stated above by Asparagus) has 3 weeks to get 2 wins otherwise bye bye surely.




As for my own team, Hinkley, Burgess, Koch took the team from nowhere to a semi then a prelim. Yes things aren't working out but let's find some more facts shall we. Out of our team against Essendon were: Carlile, Monfries, Ryder, Schulz, Wingard, Hartlett, White. Total = 1,096 games. In comparison the 12 banned Bombers total 1422 games. That's a fair portion of our experience.

Let's keep going, our average age against the Giants, not too dissimilar to the age the Giants played. The average games played though? Less for Port. There's ONE player on Port's list with over 200 games (Monfries). There's 6 more with 150+ games, 3 of them were missing and will be missing for some period.

So where's the problem? Depth I guess. Gotta get more games into them that's all we can do...

I will say this though, there's no substitute for effort, and Port put in no effort on the weekend, that is inexcusable.



/end

I agree with anything said about spud Buckley (he destroyed a premiership side - he really should have been fired last season - and attracted trash to the club, with the exception of Treloar).

Regarding Port, you know I love the club just as much as any supporter. I want Hinkley to stay for the long-haul (in fact, he surpassed Choco as my favourite PAFC coach at AFL level last year). The effort of the players has been horrible (with the exception of Pittard, R. Gray & Hombsch). But surely the gameplan needs to change. Change the game plan and players will start trying. This isn't an issue with Hinkley, it's just my concern is why it hasn't been changed yet? (I'm starting to doubt that there is a plan B).

Depth is a huge problem for us at the moment.

Granted Hinkley's game plan relied on having Dixon, Schulz, Westhoff, & Ryder. But surely he has a contingency plan for this season (because Schulz is unlikely to return in the first half and Ryder won't be back until 2017), and then he can revert back to his original gameplan once Ryder returns and Schulz is at full strength.

I don't want him to go, but his chance at missing finals was used last year. We have had it tough with injuries but it's his job to at least enable the players to be competitive (and it seems as though the high risk, high energy, fast-pased, offensive game plan is responsible for the margin). I don't think we can really blame the players for giving up when they exhaust all their energy in the opening quarter for next to no reward.

My only thoughts, that I'm also quite adamant about, is that the game plan needs to change (even Dixon isn't suited to this style of play, so we receive plenty of inside 50's but they are all wasted)

I don't think we can rely on excuses... GWS & the Crows were clearly superior to us and it seems like more of these loses are to come.

I don't agree with the Essendon experience comparison at all though... They are a team that was thrown together over a couple of weeks - some brought in during the NAB. Experience doesn't matter in that scenario - they are just trying to throw together a competitive season and provide experience for youngsters.

[tbagrocks]

I still don't get how possibly "Yet hasn't been given the chance to prove it" Port's best player Chad the Boss doesn't play his majority of footy in the midfield? Yes Gray is a star but Chad Wingard MUST be given his chance to play along side him!

The first move if I was Ken would be to play the Boss in the guts ;)

The rest of the comp though has caught up to Port, Everyone except Richmond and Fremantle (How the doing) Wants to run, carry and move the ball from one end to the other as quick as they can!

Suddenly Port are no longer unique and seriously need to find some answers very soon! Or they will miss finals by a fair way! Richmond in the same boat but they have come back from slow starts recently!

[powersuperkents]

I still don't get how possibly "Yet hasn't been given the chance to prove it" Port's best player Chad the Boss doesn't play his majority of footy in the midfield? Yes Gray is a star but Chad Wingard MUST be given his chance to play along side him!

The first move if I was Ken would be to play the Boss in the guts ;)

The rest of the comp though has caught up to Port, Everyone except Richmond and Fremantle (How the doing) Wants to run, carry and move the ball from one end to the other as quick as they can!

Suddenly Port are no longer unique and seriously need to find some answers very soon! Or they will miss finals by a fair way! Richmond in the same boat but they have come back from slow starts recently!

I personally don't see us making finals at this point - I am starting to doubt whether we can actually beat one of the 12 finals contenders this season.

It may be time to place Wingard in the guts (he'll be better than Boak & Ebert at this rate). It seems like the only two players who contest are Gray & Wines. Gray creates space and doesn't butcher it but GWS have shown that if your midfield nullifies Gray none of our mids will actually stand up and fill the void. Wines contests but he isn't an evasive player (a textbook bash and crash type) and when he has no support he just butchers it (you cannot really blame him though considering his team mates).

Boak, Ebert, Polly, Sam Gray, & Toumpas (I cannot really judge Hammer at this point) have literally just 'ball-watched' this season and expected Ollie and Gray to do all the contested work. Two of them aren't even outside mids... They seem preoccupied with receiving the ball from Gray and/or Wines and then running (only to turn it over). I'm worried that the gameplan has been indoctrinated into them at this point... Things really need to change because as a support I grow concerned when I can honestly say that only 3 players have been performing this season, two of which are defenders (Gray, Pittard, & Hombsch).

My bet is that it's the outdated gameplan... what's the point of running and carrying and most teams have worked out ways to do it better than us... (the Crows have honestly been the best at it so far this season - as soon as the ball reach their half-back line they slingshot it through the corridor with pace, Atkins has probably been my favourite on the rebound, I also always thought Brodie Smith was a hack, but I finally see why he's been rated so higher - I'm guessing that he was out-of-form in 2015).

I really think fellow Port fans should be more concerned than they appear because I'm genuinely worried about what's to come this year  :-\ (I hope to see changes against Geelong - even then, call me unrealistic but, I don't have Geelong making the 8 - I rate the Demons, GWS, & Saints more highly at this point)

[elephants]

I firmly believe Wingard needs to play close to goal as that is his best position by some way.

Although something needs to change for Port and with the emergence of Aaron Young maybe it is time to push the Chad in there?

[PowerBug]

He doesn't play mids because he's so dangerous close to goal and we have no replacement for that

[powersuperkents]

He doesn't play mids because he's so dangerous close to goal and we have no replacement for that

Yeah I have to agree, there's no one like him in that small forward role (Betts would be the next closest thing).

Aaron Young can play on the opposite pocket, but he's also been a promising half-forward flanker in the past.

I just pray that Young isn't moved back into the midfield  :P

[powersuperkents]

I have to say, after seeing Hinkley's 'genius' gameplan flop again (ultimately proving that it doesn't work anymore and that the players are in fact mere human beings) a coach with some versatility like Dimma would be appreciated at Port Adelaide.

I think Hinkley resurrected our club... but now he's destroying it... and the fact he's deflecting his own faults onto the players (who cannot be expected to play such high impact footy for 4 quarters...) really signals that a change is needed (as far as I'm concerned, it could be a change in gameplan or coach, the choice is up to Hinkley)

[tbagrocks]

So no surprises Bucks and Dimma lead the first poll results but, now the poll has reverted back to zero, with Rocket's Suns misfiring!

[Torpedo10]

Surely Ross the Boss.

His game style is unproven and clearly isn't working now. When you can't win a premiership after around 9 years of quality sides there's changes required.

Dockers fans will say stick with him, but the fact is the best sides in the AFL right now are those who can counter attack, Freo can't.

[Mat0369]

I am waiting for Lyon to leave Freo and jump ship to Collingwood after they sack Bucks.