Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley applauds his players. Picture: Simon Cross. Source: The Advertiser
KEN Hinkley's famous line on finally accepting the Port Adelaide Football Club coaching job - of being the "right man standing" - is more prophetic today.
And it is intriguing how the men who left Hinkley as the so-called last man standing feel today as the Power continues its transformation from a basket case on and off the field to a genuine model for those needing to salvage the Melbourne Football Club.
Leon Cameron may have the most to rue, although the talent base at Greater Western Sydney - and the financial underwriting from AFL House - makes his start to AFL coaching next year seem safe.
Brett Ratten, who went from the senior job at Carlton to an assistant role at Hawthorn, declared himself out of the race.
He perfectly read the Power's reluctance to hire him. But he must regret the opportunity denied to him.
Rodney Eade certainly must wish his chance to return to AFL senior coaching had found a better conclusion in a rather shabby series of talks with the Power.
He may be better for the experience if the former Western Bulldogs and Sydney coach gets caught in a double-pincer play between his current employer Collingwood and the Demons as they court a reluctant Paul Roos.
Scott Burns. Michael Malthouse. Leigh Matthews. And the list went on last year in a reverse musical chairs game at Alberton where the music kept playing while the coaching candidates disappeared leaving behind a hot seat.
Many will look at Hinkley with great envy today. So will the AFL clubs - St Kilda, Richmond and Geelong - that turned him down as a senior coach.
Hinkley and the Power may serve as a timely reminder that as bad as the Melbourne Football Club appears today, the job of coaching the Demons may not be the impossible mission it appeared under Mark Neeld.
Critically, Melbourne needs a president such as the high-profile David Koch who has successfully used his image to quickly restore the off-field credibility of a battered club. Melbourne's off-field connections and standing as one of the game's long-standing clubs should make this task easier than the challenge Koch faced at Alberton.
Although, the Demons are poorer for having an interim chief executive (the AFL's Mr Fix-It, Peter Jackson) rather than an administrator who has already measured the club as Keith Thomas did at the Power more than a year before Hinkley arrived.
The rebuild of the dysfunctional football department at Melbourne is an imperative. Hinkley is blessed at Alberton by the return of fitness coach Darren Burgess and the appointment of coaching director Alan Richardson.
Although Burgess had a stint at Alberton leading to the Power's 2007 grand final appearance - before he prepared the Socceroos for the 2010 World Cup and Liverpool in the English Premier League - the rebuild of the Port Adelaide football team has been by "outsiders".
Not for the first time in the club's 143-year history, it has taken people from the outside to restore and enhance everything that defines "Port Adelaide football".
Hinkley is the first Port coach since John Cahill in 1997-98 to ensure the Power players have lived the uncompromising, brave themes that allowed the club to rise from SANFL to AFL.
Melbourne may appear a career-ending death trap today. But Hinkley's miracle at Alberton could spare the Demons from the same knockbacks the Power faced last year from would-be coaches.
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