WHILE conditioning will form an important part of Port Adelaide’s summer training, Ken Hinkley wants his players to continue working to be better every session.
The on-track work planned by Darren Burgess's high performance team may be tweaked to suit the recent cut in interchange rotations and removal of the maligned substitute rule for the 2016 season,
But Hinkley is unlikely to change his hard-lined approach to player performance in the summer months.
Entering his fourth season as the Power’s senior coach, Hinkley is demanding his players make each session count.
It’s not a wholesale change from his training philosophy of the last three years, but his emphasis on the ‘right attitude’ in his post-draft press conference indicates it will remain central to his coaching this year.
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“That’s Burgo’s job as much as it is mine, to understand what the cut in rotations will do to the conditioning of our players,” Hinkley said.
“He will prepare them and have them in elite condition to play the game of football that’s going to be in front of them next season.
“Conditioning is the number one thing you need [before Christmas] but there’s also a mindset that we need at Port Adelaide.
“It’s a mindset that we want to perform at our best every day.”
Hinkley has been pleased with the performance shown by his playing group after three weeks of training, noting over half the team has come within metres of their personal best running times.
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“We’ve been really pleased with them [the players], out of the number there was more than 50% who were within three or four seconds of their absolute personal best. I can’t complain about that,” Hinkley said.
“They’re in great shape, they’re a credit to themselves – they always have been, this group.
“[On Wednesday] we’ve come back and trained and had a really strong session in tough conditions – hot and windy.
“They eat it up, they quite enjoy this part of the season and know how important it is to their success.”
Port Adelaide’s playing group added two new faces at Tuesday night’s NAB AFL Draft, with Riley Bonner (West Adelaide) and Aidyn Johnson (Bendigo Pioneers) coming to the Power for 2016.
Hinkley and head recruiter Geoff Parker will select a handful of rookies to top up Port’s second tier list in Friday’s rookie draft.
