Ken Hinkley and Travis Boak share a laugh during Round 24, 2023. Image: AFL Photos.

“Our club has grown significantly. We have almost 75,000 members. We have a strong, stable financial position. We can with that off-field strength support our on-field football program that for five of the past six years has been relatively successful.”

– Port Adelaide chief executive Matthew Richardson 

A DECADE ago, such an affirmative prospectus did not exist at Alberton. A lucky 13 years ago to be precise, the Port Adelaide Football Club was described (privately) by a former AFL chief executive as “irrelevant”. It is always darkest before a new dawn …

At the time, AFL clubs were defined by “pillars” … and Port Adelaide had just one, a new chief executive, Keith Thomas, an “outsider” many misguidedly declared was acting an SANFL agent.

Enter a new president, David Koch, with his national television profile.

Rise a new captain, Travis Boak as the symbol of old-fashioned loyalty.

Stand – as the “best man standing” rather than as the last willing candidate – a new coach in Ken Hinkley.

Port Adelaide was complete again.

Hinkley and Boak in 2013, the former’s first year as coach and the latter’s first as captain. Image: AFL Photos.

Boak and Hinkley this week end their part in the decade-long battle to make Port Adelaide relevant – and more. They made Port Adelaide ultra-competitive. They created a “destination club”.

Boak retires on Game No. 387, with extras (21 in pre-season and Cup appearances and one with the SANFL team) to leave as Port Adelaide’s most-experienced AFL player. He also has taken the club record for total senior games played in AFL and/or SANFL company from its greatest son, Russell Ebert – and Boak richly deserves this honour. His legacy is much more than just the brave call to stay at Alberton at the end of 2012 after being boldly courted by his “home” club at Geelong. He also was under the weight of considerable family needs as the man of the Boak household after the death of his father Roger in 2005.

“That was a pivotal moment,” says Port Adelaide chief executive Matthew Richardson of Boak’s commitment at the end of 2012. “We will be forever grateful for Travis’ loyalty at that point when our people needed someone to show they believed in where we wanted to go.

“Think about where the club was at that time …. and where it is today; Travis’ part in shaping that change has been enormous.”

When any Port Adelaide player walks in the club changerooms – that should carry the Boak name to honour his tenure at Alberton – there should be the thought of following Boak’s lead on self-improvement, professionalism by action and commitment and humility to be a good person not just a great footballer. Ebert had the same mantra.

Boak can walk off Adelaide Oval on Friday night with the admiration of his club – and the entire national competition. The resume built since being called from Torquay to Port Adelaide as the No.5 pick in the 2006 national draft is of Hall of Fame status:

Club champion as John Cahill Medallist in 2011 and 2019

All-Australian three times, 2013, 2014 and 2020

Runner-up to Lachie Neale in the 2020 Brownlow Medal

Showdown Medals three times, 2013, 2020 and 2021

Peter Badcoe VC Medal – that honours much more than best-on-field in the Anzac Round games – three times, 2014, 2015 and 2019

Captain from 2013-2018.

There is the AFL grand final appearance against Geelong in 2007 in his 14th national league game, but no premiership. But the absence of that gold medal as a premiership player does not define Boak nor diminish his part at Port Adelaide or in the game.

Boak receives the 2019 Peter Badcoe VC Medal. Image: AFL Photos.

Boak has given everything to both – and there is that indelible memory of how Boak ran and ran and kept running, both ways too, in his second-last appearance at Adelaide Oval almost a fortnight ago against Fremantle. He was leaving nothing behind – and, sadly, the game of Australian football has not given back all Boak deserves.

Hinkley leaves as Port Adelaide’s longest-serving AFL coach, 13 seasons with 296 games – 173 wins (almost 59 per cent winning record). There was no grand final, no premiership but there is a record of making Port Adelaide competitive – and relevant again. If he came to Alberton late in 2012 as the only man prepared to take up a supposedly dead-end coaching job, Hinkley leaves with the Port Adelaide brief wanted by many more than just the in-house successor Josh Carr.

Hinkley’s record has nine of the 13 seasons delivering more wins than losses; seven seasons with a total of 15 finals appearances, including four preliminary finals (2014, 2020, 2021 and 2024).

The start in 2013 was extraordinary. Hinkley declared – without truly knowing the real capacity of his team – that his players would “never, ever give up”. This was never more evident than in that semi-final at Subiaco Oval in Perth in September 2014 when Port Adelaide overcame a 24-point deficit at half-time to overwhelm the Ross Lyon-coached Dockers by 22 points.

Or that final Showdown at Football Park in 2013 when the neighbourhood rival led by 20 points with only time-on to be played at West Lakes. The four-point win – with the freakish Angus Monfries goal at the northern end – captures all that the Hinkley playbook savoured: Attacking enterprise, speed and defiance. It fitted with all Port Adelaide was creating as a vibrant club with the best game-day appearance of its matches at the new Adelaide Oval from 2014.

Hinkley and Boak share a hug post-game. Image: AFL Photos.

Rival coaches speak with admiration of Hinkley’s work at Port Adelaide – and with stinging memories of how their teams were tested and often tormented by Hinkley finding ways to turn games to Port Adelaide’s favour.

Hinkley eagerly embraced and nurtured youth – and gained a Brownlow Medallist, Ollie Wines, from his first class of recruits at Port Adelaide in 2013. He gave players who came to Alberton seeking fulfilment as footballers – such as Trent McKenzie from Gold Coast – the best chance to succeed. This is why Port Adelaide became a “destination club”.

The finish in 2025 has been bitter as a campaign cursed by an unrelenting injury count at Alberton. It is not the finish Hinkley deserved. But he stayed true to doing the job to the end, regardless of the torment from ill fortune in the medical rooms that began in January with the torn Achilles suffered by key forward Todd Marshall in pre-season training.

Contrary to all Hinkley professed for so long, you don’t always get what you deserve.

Hinkley created an era in which Port Adelaide proudly competed – and challenged the best, often punching well above the true ranking of its squad. This will be appreciated more as time goes by.

Hinkley has left his mark. The man who came to Alberton well aware the Port Adelaide Football Club was in quicksand can leave with the next set of pillars on very firm ground. Port Adelaide is more than relevant.