Just 3 days after assisting Geelong to their second premiership in 3 years, the Cats assistant coach Ken Hinkley has been appointed the new Assistant Coach of the Gold Coast team under Coach Guy McKenna.
Hinkley will working under Guy McKenna and will be joining the Gold Coast in late October as the club prepares to play in the VFL before joining the AFL in 2011.
Hinkley said that the young playing list talent that he would be working with at the Gold Coast was the deciding factor in his choice to depart Geelong and move. He stated that “in the current system a club gets about 2-3 young players a year to work with so it’s a coach’s dream to be able to work with such a large group and hopefully help them develop into a great AFL team and club”.
Guy McKenna said that he was excited to gain someone to the Gold Coast that had been involved with a team that has been one of the most successful in recent times. He said “to have that sort of experience join your coaching panel it’s exciting and I think he is excited about the quality of the young list of players he will be working with”. He added that he was very much looking forward to working closely with Hinkley.
Geelong’s Football Manager Neil Balme stated that this was a great opportunity for Ken and although the Cats were disappointed to see him go that they wished him all the best in his new adventure. He stated that Ken had been “an integral part of [the Cats] success over the past six years” (including our 2007 and 2009 premierships). He added that Ken has served the club for a total of 13 years both as a player and coach, and during that time Geelong has enjoyed its most successful era.
As a player Ken Hinkley played a total of 132 games with the Fitzroy and Geelong Football Clubs. In 1992 he won Geelong’s Best and Fairest and finished third in the Brownlow Medal. He was also a member of the All Australian team on two occasions. He played a total of 12 finals for the Cats which included the 1992, 1994, and 1995 Grand Final losses and retired in 1995.
In 2001 he joined St Kilda as assistant coach but in the following year became the Senior Coach of Bell Park (in the Geelong Football League) and oversaw a premiership in 2003. In 2004 he returned to his old football club Geelong and became an assistant coach to Mark Thompson.
Hinkley applied for the position of Senior Coach of the Richmond Football Club and got close but ended up losing the job to Damien Hardwick.
More recently he celebrated another Geelong Premiership under Mark Thompson as Geelong’s Assistant Coach.
Tags: Guy McKenna, Ken Hinkley, Mark Thompson
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