Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley’s heated verbal exchange with Hawthorn players, and in particular captain James Sicily, made for a tense postscript to the Power’s thrilling three-point semi-final win.
As both teams lined up for a guard of honour for Hawks 300-gamer Luke Breust, Hinkley gestured at the Hawks players and mimed an aeroplane with his arms, before giving the players a spray.
Hinkley confirmed in the Power rooms that the tirade was directed at young Hawk Jack Ginnivan, who divided opinion earlier in the week with a cheeky ‘see you in two weeks’ comment on Sydney ruckman and former Collingwood teammate Brodie Grundy’s Instagram, hinting that the Hawks would defeat Port in their final.
The exchange saw Sicily aggressively come to his teammates’ defence, furiously responding to Hinkley’s taunts as things got tense at the Adelaide Oval.
Speaking on Channel 7 and Fox Footy respectively, Hawks greats Luke Hodge and Jordan Lewis were aghast at Hinkley’s behaviour.
“As a coach, that’s pretty disappointing,” Hodge said.
“I reckon Ken as a coach would sit back and go ‘we’ve just had a great win, we should be talking about how our team we played’. Instead the coach is mouthing off to the opposition side. Pretty poor form.”
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Hodge later added that Hinkley’s comments had taken the gloss off a great Power win, with his club now seen as ‘poor sports’.
“You use it as motivation to build the blokes up to say if he gets near the ball, you go and get him,” the four-time Hawks premiership player said.
“But as soon as you win and the siren goes, the game is over.
“He is a 60-year old man. Act your age. You don’t go and start stuff like that because then, after all the football that Port played, they were sensational tonight, we’re coming out talking about them being poor sports, by saying that to a team that’s just finished their season.”
Lewis described the Power coach’s conduct as ’embarrassing’, saying the spray was disrespectful to former teammate Breust.
“He doesn’t need to do that – I think it ruins a good night, to be honest. What’s the point?” he said.
“It’s ruined your night!” former Collingwood coach and co-panellist Nathan Buckley quipped.
“Surely as a coach you understand where the line is,” Lewis continued.
“I thought it was embarrassing.
“The where he did it and how we did it – you understand Luke Breust was coming off, there was going to be a guard of honour recognising a champion of the game after 300 games – I don’t think there was anything to gain.”
“If he wanted to have a bit of playing during the week, well say it then. I don’t think you gain anything saying it after the game and to think it’s not going to get talked about. I think it’s embarrassing from Ken’s point of view.”
However, Lewis’ Fox Footy co-panellist Jonathan Brown defended Hinkley, saying Ginnivan and the Hawks’ brash behaviour throughout the season had caused them to be hit by ‘the karma bus’.
“It’s a great leveller, this game,” Brown said.
“Kenny would have used every bit of that [Ginnivan’s Instagram comment]. He definitely would have used it as motivation.”
Speaking after the match, a clearly incensed Sam Mitchell praised Sicily’s conduct in standing up for Ginnivan, taking a thinly veiled swipe at Hinkley’s ‘very aggressive words’.
“If I think about how my club, the Hawthorn Football Club, dealt with the post-game – we have a very young player who was having some very aggressive words said to him by a much older man, who’s been in the game for a long time. And the captain of my club stood up for him,” Mitchell said.
“It’s really tough to sit here right now, getting rushed by the AFL to make sure you’re at your press conference on time, so I understand the emotions of this time of year are really really difficult. I’m really really proud of our captain who would’ve been just as emotional [as Hinkley], who was able to stand up and lead in a way that he could be proud of.”
When asked by Channel 7 reporter Mitch Cleary whether he would seek to make contact with Hinkley to discuss the incident, Mitchell bluntly responded ‘absolutely not’, before refusing to answer a third question about it.
“That’s the third question, that’s enough,” he said.
Speaking first on Seven’s Roaming Brian and then in his post-match press conference, Hinkley admitted he may have gone over the top with the spray, but
“Jack said what he said through the week, and I just told him after the game he wasn’t going anywhere,” Hinkley told Brian Taylor.
“I don’t know social media, I just do what I do. I probably shouldn’t have done it.
“I should apologise to the [Hawthorn] boys, I shouldn’t have probably done it. But the reality was, you throw something our way, we’re going to throw something back occasionally.”
Hinkley later described the post-match run-in as ‘a moment I shouldn’t have had’.
“It was an emotional game and a big result. There was stuff said during last week I certainly didn’t enjoy. But I shouldn’t have let that moment get to me,” he said.
“We as a footy club found it [Ginnivan’s Instagram comment] a little bit disrespectful. That’s why it gets to where it gets.
“It just goes to show everyone can get better and I’m still trying to get better.”