Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley is adamant he’s as excited as ever and coaching succession plan will work despite 91-point loss to Collingwood

Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley says there’s “no confusion” between him and his successor Josh Carr and he has no intention of bringing the plan for Carr to take over next season forward despite suffering the heaviest loss of his career. In the first game since the club announced Carr, Hinkley’s senior assistant, would take over as head coach in 2026, Port was smashed by 91 points by Collingwood at the MCG. It marked the heaviest loss of Hinkley’s 13 seasons in charge and sparked questions about whether him staying in the role for the rest of the season would be detrimental to Port’s finals chances. But Hinkley said the defeat didn’t move him to reconsider his position, adamant he still had the “energy” to work through the season-long handover that the club had planned for. He also and rebuffed suggestions from former Port star Kane Cornes that he had “had enough”. “I am as excited as I have been all year,” he said on Tuesday, addressing the fallout from the loss to the Magpies. “I said that all the way through. I am disappointed in a really bad loss but I am not going to waiver or jump to a position that I wasn’t in last Thursday. “I am excited about what this team can do, I am excited about the growth of this team and I am excited about the direction of this footy club. “Saturday night makes it hard for everyone to accept that it was the right direction right now but before that it was pretty good.” Hinkley was adamant that he and Carr, and the rest of the Port coaching staff, were clear in their roles, and they wouldn’t react after “one loss”. “I think we have been really clear on that, there is absolutely no confusion,” he said. “I said right from the start I have plenty of energy for the job. Josh and I know exactly what is going on, the whole football club knows what is going on. “People have some opinions based off one loss. “I don’t enjoy big losses regardless of if it was 91 (points) and the next biggest was 86 or something like that, five points, it is a bad loss. “Yes, it hits the top of the benchmark for my career, but when you are losing by 90 points or 86 points it is bad.” Port will take on Richmond at Adelaide Oval on Saturday afternoon in what looms as a crunch match for the club.