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Opinion
New coaches are one of the stories of the early season.
If you had all of Carlton, Collingwood and Hawthorn as being 2-0 after the first two weeks, given they had an average finish of 15th on the ladder between them last year, then you should take your show on the road.
There have been big some scalps in those wins too – two of last years preliminary finalists in Port Adelaide and the Western Bulldogs, plus a team that’s won two of the last three flags in Richmond.
Michael Voss and Sam Mitchell were both hard-nosed midfielders and have the Blues and Hawks playing somewhat in their likeness.
Carlton’s stoppage prowess has been a delight to marvel at in the early round, hardness at the man and ball coupled with no fumbling and lightning quick handballs to release teammates from clearance. Sounds a lot like a certain 1996 Brownlow Medallist. Top four beckons, and a premiership is not out of the question.
Patrick Cripps celebrates with his Carlton teammates. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
Hawthorn blew Port off the park on Saturday night, and is another team where you can tell the new coach has spent a lot of pre-season working on ball handling. Sam Mitchell was one of the cleanest and most skilful footballers we’ve ever seen, so knows the value of one-grab possessions under pressure, and has transferred that to his team.
Craig McCrae spent a lot of time at Richmond under Damien Hardwick, and it hasn’t taken a genius to see the similarities with how he has Collingwood playing. Forward movement is much higher on the agenda than it was under Nathan Buckley, particularly by hand, and their pressure game has been excellent.
These are the new coaches, and it seems all of them are going to produce a spike this year due to having their teams playing an identifiable brand. The buy-in from players is clearly there.
However, there are two other clubs that don’t have new coaches, but their time must be coming. And it could be this season. Frankly, it should be this season.
Ken Hinkley is now in his tenth season as senior coach at Port, a tenure that has produced a total of zero grand finals and certainly no premierships.
The last two coaches to enter a tenth season with no premiership on the CV were Nathan Buckley and Brad Scott. Both were sacked mid-season (or ‘stepped down’ to those looking more kindly on the situation) when their respective teams were sitting in the bottom three.
Oftentimes a coach gets sacked after that length of time because they have entered the season with expectation and failed to deliver, and that’s the scenario facing Hinkley and the Power right now.
Port finished in the top two on the ladder in 2020 and 2021, earned home preliminary finals and failed to convert them into grand finals. The last of these was arguably the most embarrassing performance from any team last year, when they simply failed to compete.
Many wondered whether that loss would leave psychological scars entering this season, and the evidence is starting to accumulate. They have now lost their last two matches at Adelaide Oval, starting hot favourites both times, by a total of 135 points.
As is the way of a club under siege, the injuries are starting to add up already too. When things are going badly, the momentum tends to build on itself. A rolling stone gathers no moss.
Ken Hinkley. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
Leon Cameron has been senior coach at GWS for nine years now, but was at the club as Kevin Sheedy’s second-in-command before that. He’s been part of the furniture for a decade.
Like Buckley, Cameron has one grand final for no premierships, but has also taken his team to the precipice of contention in other years.
The Giants opened the season with a gritty loss against Sydney, but were simply abject against Richmond on Sunday. They were beaten up physically, and allowed the Tigers to move the ball far too freely in the second half, unwilling to work defensively.
GWS peaked in 2016-17, and have been a lower-end-of-the-eight team ever since. If ever a team has been screaming out for a new voice, it’s them.
The Power and Giants have opened the season 0-2 and heat is on.
The mind goes back to Geelong at the end of 2010, when the Cats had been bundled out of a preliminary final. Chris Scott replaces Mark Thompson as coach and takes them to a flag in 2011.
Clubs wait too long to move on a senior coach, waiting until they bottom out. Make the move earlier, and rather than a jump from 16th to ninth, you might see it from eighth to a premiership.
Ken Hinkley and Leon Cameron won’t be delivering a premiership to Port or GWS. Senior coaching positions are not jobs for life.
The question is whether the Power and Giants will decay enough this season for those clubs to pull the trigger. Sometimes, long enough is enough.