Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley is acutely aware of his side’s sinking season, but says he’ll stick with his current crop of players – for now.
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After a fiery encounter at Adelaide Oval, which saw Port lead by 24 after their best first quarter of the season, only to lose by 48 to a ruthless Geelong, Hinkley backed his under fire players in the face of criticism from club president David Koch and supporters.
“Some of the players in the side at the moment who are recognised players in our team are just not in good form,” Hinkley said during the press conference.
“There’s no good sugar coating that. There’s no good saying they are.”
“We’ll stick with them and we’ll stick together with them and we’ll say, ‘you know what let’s keep working’ because we know that their form is good enough when they’re full of confidence but at the moment they haven’t got it.”
That's it.@PAFC are the biggest Pretenders since Chrissie Hynde picked up a guitar.#AFLPowerCats
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One of the biggest problems for Hinkley is personnel: he has no-one to bring in.
“You can’t continue to carry them all the way through but you can’t go and throw seven or eight out of a side when you don’t have that quality of good players ready to come back into the side,” he said.
“Our slogan says we will never give up... it means we will never give up on the whole thing; it's not just about tonight, one quarter or a half,” he said. “When it gets tough that's when you have got to see whether you will give up.
“This footy club won't give up. We will stay together and work hard and make sure we improve where we are right now, and that's bit by bit.”
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