Analysis Defining Hinkleyball

[Econopower]

I've been curious about Port's playing style under Hinkley for a while now. So, because I have a bit of time on my hands at the moment while on gardening leave between my previous job in the UK, and the next one due to start back in Australia in August, I thought I would review some key markers during Hinkley's time with the club.

What follows is not exhaustive, and is limited to only the data I could easily get my hands on - at least for free. Nevertheless, there are some pretty clear patterns that emerge.

Over the full 10 and a bit seasons, there are three categories in which Port's averages rank at the top of the competition - Clearances/game; I50s/game; and I50s/disposal - and nobody is really even close to us for clearances or I50s per game. Bottom line, we get first crack of the ball a lot out of stoppages, and use that advantage to get the ball inside 50 a lot, and therefore give ourselves more potential opportunities to score goals.

But then the problems begin. We rank only 9th for I50s per goal, so rank 5th for goals per game - not bad but not what it could be. Moreover, we are third in clangers per game. Together these data underline another theme people rage against - Hinkley's brand is to effectively prioritise volume over efficiency.

This is most likely because we have recruited and coached players to match a preferred game plan, given the persistence of these rankings over time, even as we have cycled through a lot of players. Though there may be an element of adapting the game plan to some key players like Wines and Boak - both of whom have been in the team for the duration of Hinkley's time as coach, and are renowned as low efficiency players.

I also looked at accuracy in front of goals. Interestingly, we are around the middle of the pack over the full period (10th), and it is not a category where there is much variation across teams over long samples. For example, the most accurate team over that period has a conversion rate (not including out of bounds/not making the distance) of 55.8% (the Hawks), ours is 52.3%, and the worst is the Saints with 50.8%.

That said, our accuracy does appear to have deteriorated over recent seasons. This year we are ranked 16th. Last year we were 14th. In 2020 we were 15th and 2019 16th. Only in 2021, when we finished top in a shortened season were we in the top half in those five seasons, and even then we were 7th.

For what it is worth, it is rare for teams to be as inaccurate as we have been this season over a full season, or as accurate as the Demons and Saints have been this season over a full season - regression to the mean is common - even if our mean is far from stellar.

 

[El_Scorcho]

It's changed a little bit over time, but basically

• Defence is paramount, take up defensive positions as a first priority
• Generate intercept marks through frontal pressure forcing miskicks
• Break from defence quickly (he's tried a few things here to get this to happen including some disasters, but he's mostly got that happening)
• High volume of I50s
• DO NOT get intercept marked. This part of it formed in 2015/16 when our 2014 slingshot gameplan got destroyed by teams playing 2 loose players back.
• In order to not get intercept marked, kick it long and high to Charlie if you don't have a wide open target. Charlie won't always mark it but he doesn't get outmarked.
• Keep your fingers good and crossed that we shithouse a goal once it gets inside 50, but if not, just get it back in there as quickly as possible.

At the stoppages we've been less consistent and more reliant on assistants, and we've never really managed to find a groove. We've had a variety of ruck types, midfielder styles etc. Nothing has been coherently Port Adelaide apart from not showing up for a half of footy every 4th or 5th week.

 

[DaTBird187]

Hinkleyball.

 

[Econopower]

It's changed a little bit over time, but basically

• Defence is paramount, take up defensive positions as a first priority
• Generate intercept marks through frontal pressure forcing miskicks
• Break from defence quickly (he's tried a few things here to get this to happen including some disasters, but he's mostly got that happening)
• High volume of I50s
• DO NOT get intercept marked. This part of it formed in 2015/16 when our 2014 slingshot gameplan got destroyed by teams playing 2 loose players back.
• In order to not get intercept marked, kick it long and high to Charlie if you don't have a wide open target. Charlie won't always mark it but he doesn't get outmarked.
• Keep your fingers good and crossed that we shithouse a goal once it gets inside 50, but if not, just get it back in there as quickly as possible.

At the stoppages we've been less consistent and more reliant on assistants, and we've never really managed to find a groove. We've had a variety of ruck types, midfielder styles etc. Nothing has been coherently Port Adelaide apart from not showing up for a half of footy every 4th or 5th week.

Good additional points but we have been remarkably consistent as a very good stoppage team. Lowest rank over Hinkley's tenure was 9th and the next lowest 5th. True though that our best stoppage years coincided with when Gray was at his peak.

 

[El_Scorcho]

Good additional points but we have been remarkably consistent as a very good stoppage team. Lowest rank over Hinkley's tenure was 9th and the next lowest 5th. True though that our best stoppage years coincided with when Gray was at his peak.

Generally agree, which is why it's incredibly frustrating when you get a game like say, the 2020 prelim, where we get absolutely spanked at the centre clearances and lose a game by a kick. Plenty of other examples where we got absolutely slaughtered in the clearances for a quarter and that cost us the game. We've had some excellent clearance players in there and while we've had some different styles of player, we've always had players who are very good when on.

I guess the defining characteristic of hinkleyball ultimately is that it's wildly unreliable.

 

[Econopower]

Generally agree, which is why it's incredibly frustrating when you get a game like say, the 2020 prelim, where we get absolutely spanked at the centre clearances and lose a game by a kick. Plenty of other examples where we got absolutely slaughtered in the clearances for a quarter and that cost us the game. We've had some excellent clearance players in there and while we've had some different styles of player, we've always had players who are very good when on.

I guess the defining characteristic of hinkleyball ultimately is that it's wildly unreliable.

Indeed - and to Richmond, a notoriously bad clearance team!

 

[Janus]

“Historically, there are seven key statistical pillars that underpin a side's fortunes: points against, points against from turnovers, inside 50 differential, time in forward half differential, opposition score per inside 50s, points from turnovers differential and defensive 50 to inside 50 transition.

The 10 most recent AFL premiers have ranked in the top six in at least four of those categories, and nine of them in at least three. They're the seven strongest links we can make to premiership success.”

Points against - self explanatory. Port is currently 10th.

Points against from turnovers - if you **** up, do you **** up badly? Don’t have this stat but if you assume all points conceded are from turnover for every side, Port is at 1.3 while Collingwood is at 1.0 and Geelong is at 1.2.

Inside 50 differential - Port is currently 7th with 1.6.

Time in forward half differential - do you keep the ball locked in your front half? Port scores 21.9 points per game from forward half stoppages, second in the league.

Opposition score per inside 50 - Port currently sits at 1.6, while St Kilda sits at 1.1, Collingwood is 1.5 and Geelong is 1.7.

Points from turnovers differential - we’ve historically been very good at this. Don’t have any stats for this though.

Defensive 50 to inside 50 transition - we’re at 1.4 inside 50s per rebound 50 for the year. Collingwood and Geelong are at 1.6.

What is “Hinkleyball”? It’s maximising these areas, if you think about it. It’s a game based around forward pressure and putting your best kicks in defence (Burton, Houston, McKenzie, Farrell, Williams, Burgoyne, Bonner) so you can maximise defensive to offensive transition, with the wings and high forwards pushing back hard to give those backs max protection.

Against Richmond in 2020, we lost centre clearance by 7 (4-11) and stoppage clearance by 5 (25-30), but only lost the game by 6 points. In 2021, we won centre clearance by 1 (11-10) and lost stoppage clearance by 7 (24-31) and got smashed by 71 points. Clearance numbers mean absolutely nothing in the context of winning a premiership, let alone a game, in modern football.

Against Richmond we had 58 inside 50s and they had 50 rebound 50s, while they had 44 inside 50s to our 38 rebound 50s - 8 to 6 in favour of Port. Yet Richmond had 16 scoring shots to our 10. That means our problem wasn’t clearance, but our ability to lock the ball inside 50 and generate a score - any score - from our dominance. That’s why I didn’t give a **** with all the points we were scoring against Essendon - at least we were keeping the score ticking over.

Against the Bulldogs we had 48 inside 50s to their 60 - which would have been fine if we defended like Richmond the year before. Instead, we could only manage 41 rebound 50s (a differential of 19) to their 40 (a differential of 8). Hence why they managed to double our scoring shots - 15 to 31. We couldn't generate the intercepts we needed.

 

[Wargreymon90]

Winning games of football whilst looking completely unconvincing, only to get found out by genuinely good sides

 

[Andre]

• Relying on individual brilliance rather than a system.
• No consistency in structure. Whether you think he's a dick, a great coach or both, Clarkson, and most other coaches, selects players based on their desired structure, which comes from their gameplan. Hinkley picks each side like he's an AA selector, picking a best 22 (or more accurately favourite 22 players), then jamming those players into places (except he loves HBF'ers rather than midfielders like the AA selection committee). Our ruck situation and continual selection (and (lack of) targeting in drafts) of undersized KPD's the most glaringly obvious current iteration of this. Past years and years of 1.5 KPF's (Westhoff plus one tall played as a KPF) also show if Ken doesn't have his preferred players in positions (especially talls), he'll go with 'team defense' and 'forward pressure' over playing someone outside his preferred group.
• No consistency in gameplan - which is a follow on / part of the point above. Whilst AFL is not as role based as the other ball sports, NRL, Soccer or even the Rugbies, there's still roles that different positions play and the different roles/positions that players can play, that is, in part, dictated by their height. Whilst the AFL itself has drained my desire to follow any matches not involving Port from me, many years ago, from even the small parts I do watch/track, no coach comes near Hinkley for having no cohesive ongoing structure they try to stick to week to week, even if their best players aren't available.

 

[Minotaur2]

One thing that always surprises me when watching at the ground is how ineffective our forwards are at making space for one another. I.e. Player 1 leading and taking a defender with them to create space for Player 2 to lead into. Honestly, I think the forwards on my son's under 15 soccer team are better at running channels and making looping runs to create space for other players. It struck me on the weekend that when we were moving into forward 50 (even from static play like a free kick) the number of times that McEntee (the player least likely to mark it) would be standing still in the middle of the forward 50 with his defender standing next to him just clogging up the space. It is so obvious that he needs to move out to leave space for the big guys to lead into and then loop back to get close to context as the incoming ball is arriving in to pick up the crumb. We also regularly have several of the big guys competing for the same ball. I don't get how this can happened. Do they not train this stuff?

Finally, I also don't get why when we have a player who is so good at conversion (Marshall) that we do not base our game plan on getting the ball to him. I would have thought it is pretty simple. ONe guy leads left - second guy leads right leaving the space up the middle for Marshall - and swap it around time to time as to who leads where. If defenders don't follow the lead that is where the ball should go.

 

[elbarton]

An element of our defensive system seems to be that we commit numbers to aerial contests. This happens with such regularity that it must be a direction. It looks terrible when it doesn’t work out, as we get exposed by opposition forwards that stay down, but I suppose the club would point to the defensive numbers that it has been successful overall.

I wonder if this is sense as a fallback position to have a third player flying in to support the primary defender playing in front.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Kick it to the bloody shithouse.

 

[ibd77]

This thread can be summed up in 2 words.

CHAOS FOOTBALL!!!

Most of our scoring comes as a result of this. there is very little system involved to actually convey the ball from defense to forward and hitting up leads for set shots on goal. To be honest most of our players are pretty sh!t at set shots, so Chaos Football works well in this instance.

 

[NoddyHolder]

One thing that always surprises me when watching at the ground is how ineffective our forwards are at making space for one another. I.e. Player 1 leading and taking a defender with them to create space for Player 2 to lead into. Honestly, I think the forwards on my son's under 15 soccer team are better at running channels and making looping runs to create space for other players. It struck me on the weekend that when we were moving into forward 50 (even from static play like a free kick) the number of times that McEntee (the player least likely to mark it) would be standing still in the middle of the forward 50 with his defender standing next to him just clogging up the space. It is so obvious that he needs to move out to leave space for the big guys to lead into and then loop back to get close to context as the incoming ball is arriving in to pick up the crumb. We also regularly have several of the big guys competing for the same ball. I don't get how this can happened. Do they not train this stuff?

Finally, I also don't get why when we have a player who is so good at conversion (Marshall) that we do not base our game plan on getting the ball to him. I would have thought it is pretty simple. ONe guy leads left - second guy leads right leaving the space up the middle for Marshall - and swap it around time to time as to who leads where. If defenders don't follow the lead that is where the ball should go.

The companion strategy to the forwards issues is the defenders always getting sucked into the contest together, leaving opponents free and unmarked. The number of times all of our tall defenders fly together to spoil and get in each other's way is infuriating and has been happening for years

 

[PortWTF]

Take a look at Carlton. Hinkley's disciple Voss is playing pure Hinkleyball. It only took 6 rounds this year for football commentary to work out it was shithouse, but we've been doing it for 8 years and no one bats an eyelid.

 

[Alberton Proud]

4,785,921 possessions per goal

 

[El_Scorcho]

One thing that always surprises me when watching at the ground is how ineffective our forwards are at making space for one another. I.e. Player 1 leading and taking a defender with them to create space for Player 2 to lead into. Honestly, I think the forwards on my son's under 15 soccer team are better at running channels and making looping runs to create space for other players. It struck me on the weekend that when we were moving into forward 50 (even from static play like a free kick) the number of times that McEntee (the player least likely to mark it) would be standing still in the middle of the forward 50 with his defender standing next to him just clogging up the space. It is so obvious that he needs to move out to leave space for the big guys to lead into and then loop back to get close to context as the incoming ball is arriving in to pick up the crumb. We also regularly have several of the big guys competing for the same ball. I don't get how this can happened. Do they not train this stuff?

This is by design.

We don't want to concede intercept marks or quick rebounds, so we clog the area where we're gonna kick the ball (usually high and long to Dixon).

Defence first, even when kicking inside 50. That's Hinkleyball.

 

[El_Scorcho]

Against Richmond in 2020, we lost centre clearance by 7 (4-11) and stoppage clearance by 5 (25-30), but only lost the game by 6 points. In 2021, we won centre clearance by 1 (11-10) and lost stoppage clearance by 7 (24-31) and got smashed by 71 points. Clearance numbers mean absolutely nothing in the context of winning a premiership, let alone a game, in modern football.

Against Richmond we had 58 inside 50s and they had 50 rebound 50s, while they had 44 inside 50s to our 38 rebound 50s - 8 to 6 in favour of Port. Yet Richmond had 16 scoring shots to our 10. That means our problem wasn’t clearance, but our ability to lock the ball inside 50 and generate a score - any score - from our dominance. That’s why I didn’t give a * with all the points we were scoring against Essendon - at least we were keeping the score ticking over.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of that game and why we couldn't score.

By 2020 Richmond had established themselves as the best intercepting defence in the league and ended up as a dynasty side off of sides not being able to move the ball against them. Experts at slowing teams down so their defence could get setup, and then experts at generating intercept marks and takeaways.

By having a patented Ken Hinkley bedshitting moment at the centre clearances in that game, we had to start every score launch from defence, against the best side in the modern era at stopping teams from doing exactly that. We couldn't get the ball in deep to lock it in. Our best shot at that was to take advantage of the 6-6-6 rule to get the ball in while they weren't able to get their loose players set up.

Richmond realised they had a huge advantage and just ground us out, backing in their defence to keep delivering and their gun forwards who were able to find a way through enough times to win the game. Quintessential Hinkley to have way more I50s but not be able to score from them. We had 5 marks inside 50 and 10 scoring shots from 58 inside 50s.

That is 100% on the clearances, specifically the centre clearances where we could have taken advantage of the 6-6-6 rule. We couldn't move the ball quickly into the forward line to give our forwards an advantage, we had to trudge the length of the field with the full power of a peak Richmond dynasty defence in our way every time. We're famously not a slick ball movement side, we play a territorial game, and we're significantly better at that now than we were in 2020.

We were a better clearance side than Richmond in 2020, i'd argue comfortably so. If we'd split the centre clearances 50/50 we'd have gotten so far ahead we'd have been able to rest key players late in the game. We smacked them in the clearances 40-22 in the H&A season and won in a canter, with +11 scoring shots, and they just couldn't get set up and we took 12 marks inside 50. We had the blueprint to beat them, we'd already executed it really well, and we decided to do what Port's stoppage units do several times a year under Ken Hinkley, shit the bed so hard that we have to organise a hard rubbish collection.

 

[longdonkey]

One thing that isn't really mentioned here about Hinkleyball is that it involves playing either extra player(s) behind the ball or at the clearance meaning that you are under-represented in the forward line.

 

[Enviable Tradition]

Always defending, even when you attack.

It is scared football.

On SM-G975F using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Duck Farmer]

Pressure builds blancmanges.

 

[tribey]

If the players sh¡t their pants when the lights are at their brightest = Hinkleyball

 

[longdonkey]

Here's another thing about Hinkleyball notice our use of wingmen at centre bounces. How many times did you see Amon move toward a stoppage to take a handball out the back of the stoppage and then kick from behind centre. This as well as the use of DBJ or Houston coming off the back square to provide defensive pressure at the stoppage is classic Hinkleyball. You see Boak doing it quite a lot this year.

Normally you see the opposing wingman spread from clearance and he'll quite often pick up an easy unpressured possession if they win the clearance.

 

[GremioPower]

Tactically speaking, we don’t seem to be at odds with strong sides. I don’t think we have had a weak list either. We have been a pretty good football team.

But then, why have we failed? And, do not even start, we have indeed failed.

And I’m not even saying this based on a high threshold. We should have played Finals consistently, but didn’t. Three times in the past 8 seasons simply do not make the cut.

If the plan is sound, we have quality enough to execute, but we aren’t successful, what have been missing?

I think we need to look at the intangibles for the answer. The question is: what does separate champions from contenders and pretenders?

It’s the concern with details (marginal gains, RussellEbertHandball), the relentless drive for winning, the hate towards defeat, the will to be protagonist in the big moments, etc.

Do we have that?

I think that Hinkleyball is defined as: “good, but never good enough; which is fine as it is.”

 

[TeeKray]

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of that game and why we couldn't score.

By 2020 Richmond had established themselves as the best intercepting defence in the league and ended up as a dynasty side off of sides not being able to move the ball against them. Experts at slowing teams down so their defence could get setup, and then experts at generating intercept marks and takeaways.

By having a patented Ken Hinkley bedshitting moment at the centre clearances in that game, we had to start every score launch from defence, against the best side in the modern era at stopping teams from doing exactly that. We couldn't get the ball in deep to lock it in. Our best shot at that was to take advantage of the 6-6-6 rule to get the ball in while they weren't able to get their loose players set up.

Richmond realised they had a huge advantage and just ground us out, backing in their defence to keep delivering and their gun forwards who were able to find a way through enough times to win the game. Quintessential Hinkley to have way more I50s but not be able to score from them. We had 5 marks inside 50 and 10 scoring shots from 58 inside 50s.

That is 100% on the clearances, specifically the centre clearances where we could have taken advantage of the 6-6-6 rule. We couldn't move the ball quickly into the forward line to give our forwards an advantage, we had to trudge the length of the field with the full power of a peak Richmond dynasty defence in our way every time. We're famously not a slick ball movement side, we play a territorial game, and we're significantly better at that now than we were in 2020.

We were a better clearance side than Richmond in 2020, i'd argue comfortably so. If we'd split the centre clearances 50/50 we'd have gotten so far ahead we'd have been able to rest key players late in the game. We smacked them in the clearances 40-22 in the H&A season and won in a canter, with +11 scoring shots, and they just couldn't get set up and we took 12 marks inside 50. We had the blueprint to beat them, we'd already executed it really well, and we decided to do what Port's stoppage units do several times a year under Ken Hinkley, s**t the bed so hard that we have to organise a hard rubbish collection.

Yep.

Boak, Wines and Rockliff - who all had extremely good seasons - just completely dropped their bundle and decided to each individually play their worst games of the season just when we needed them the most.

If even one of those guys stood up it might've been a different story. Depressing.