‘Turn the page’: AFL great’s call for coach change amid ‘ugly’ vision in grim 14-year low

Ken Hinkley has been urged to speed up the Port Adelaide coaching handover process following its repugnant Round 1 drubbing at the hands of Collingwood — and the vision from the loss is glaring.

In the 91-point loss — in which the Magpies recorded their biggest-ever total score under Craig McRae — the Power conceded 15.9 (99) from turnover alone; their most in 14 years.

Two-time premiership player David King said on Fox Footy’s First Crack: “It has to sheet home to the motivation levels of this group. They weren’t invested in the contest.”

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King said “the heat is really on” the impending Hinkley-Josh Carr switch, going on to call for the 58-year-old to step down now as opposed to the end of the season — when the handover will officially come into effect.

“It’s under serious scrutiny right now, and it’s all the talk. The long goodbye doesn’t work. We’ve seen it before, and we’ve seen it fail before,” King said on Sunday night.

“And I understand Port Adelaide are trying to respect Ken Hinkley, but they’ve made their decision that he’s not the future. So, why not start the future now?

“It’s plain for us all to see that. I think Ken should go in and say ‘I’ll take the pressure off the club; I can see what’s happening, I can see this is going to become an every-week discussion. I’m happy to walk.’

“Pay him out, let Josh Carr get on with it from here on in. Turn the page.”

Port Adelaide recorded 17 fewer inside-50s and 16 fewer scoring shots than Collingwood in a truly one-sided Saturday night bout, with King asserting “it’s time” for change to be made in order for the club to “stand on its own two feet”.

“You’ve been great for one another … (but) I’m saying ‘come on Ken, do the right thing by Josh. Do the right thing by the club that’s been incredible for you for 13 years’,” King continued.

“No one in footy wants to hear ‘it’s time’ — doesn’t matter if you’re an administrator, a player, a coach, whatever. No one wants to hear (it), but we all know it’s time. They might beat Richmond, they might beat the Bombers, they might St Kilda. It doesn’t really matter.

“It’ll roll on, and every week we’ll be talking about this — so my plea, really, is to take this off the table.

“If you really love the club, do the right thing. It’s time. It’s going to be an every-week discussion, it’s going to be impossible for this club to have success in this phase.”

If it becomes a week-to-week proposition, particularly after heavy losses, King believes it will start to affect the players.

“Yeah, and every time they do something different — (we’ll ask) ‘is this Ken, or is this Josh? Are we seeing Josh’s coaching yet? Whose system change is it?’” he said.

“It’s hard enough to win premierships with everything absolutely in order and challenging and charging as a united front from board to player … and I just think this is impossible. Ken knows that.

“Pay him out, thank him in the right way, but I think it’s Ken’s call more than theirs.

“There’ll be whispers going through the playing unit. This is on Ken, for me … and he’s been a great servant of that football club, but it is time.”

The vision from the Power’s loss to Collingwood is jarring, with two-time All-Australian Leigh Montagna dubbing some of their efforts “embarrassing”.

“We take a look at some of the vision, and it’s ugly watching if you are Port Adelaide,” he told First Crack.

Watch the vision from First Crack in the video player below:

“This isn’t the last quarter. Look at the Collingwood players streaming past — there’s five of them for a handball receive. They left Port Adelaide in their dust.

“Not only did Port Adelaide look like a team that didn’t play last week, they looked like a team, to be honest, that hadn’t done a pre-season.

“Look at some of these clips … it was actually incredible to watch, being there live. People were sitting there going ‘oh, wow’.

“Look at Port Adelaide’s effort here, that is putting up the white flag and having no care for the end result or for your teammates in what they were doing, particularly in that fourth quarter.

“I could’ve showed … six or seven clips. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough time.

“Watch the white jumpers just loiter in the middle of the ground … they have changed the way they want to play; they wanted to spread the field, they wanted to kick it around and be unpredictable … but the way that Collingwood just toyed with them and had that much space, it was hard to watch.”