{"id":811259,"date":"2026-07-20T01:18:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T01:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/811259\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T01:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T01:18:11","slug":"tasmania-devils-to-name-ken-hinkley-as-first-afl-coach-tasmania-devils","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/811259\/","title":{"rendered":"Tasmania Devils to name Ken Hinkley as first AFL coach | Tasmania Devils"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ken Hinkley will be announced as Tasmania\u2019s inaugural AFL coach less than 12 months after being moved on from Port Adelaide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After a long and thorough process, the Devils landed on the 59-year-old to lead the club into their first season in 2028.<\/p>\n

Hinkley, who presented to the club\u2019s chief executive, Brendon Gale, and Tasmania\u2019s board on Sunday, will be officially announced at a press conference in Hobart on Monday morning.<\/p>\n

Tasmania\u2019s social media accounts teased the announcement on Sunday evening.<\/p>\n

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Hinkley won the role over former Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley and ex-Sydney boss John Longmire, who both expressed interest in the job.<\/p>\n

Longmire met with the Devils a fortnight ago in what he described as a fact-finding mission, while Buckley was favoured for the job last year when he pulled out of the race to find Melbourne\u2019s coach.<\/p>\n

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Hinkley coached Port from 2013 to 2025, instantly taking them to the finals after a dismal five seasons following the club\u2019s humiliating and record-breaking grand final loss in 2007.<\/p>\n

Although Hinkley never got to a grand final from three preliminary final appearances, Port were almost always in contention during his time.<\/p>\n

He walked away with an excellent winning record of 58.6%, having guided Port to 174 victories from his 297 games in charge.<\/p>\n

The club\u2019s off-field situation also improved dramatically as crowds returned to games because they were competitive.<\/p>\n

Hinkley was named coach of the year twice (2013 and 2020) but stepped aside when highly rated assistant Josh Carr wanted the Port job.<\/p>\n

Playing 132 games for Fitzroy and Geelong between 1987 and 1995, Hinkley spent time as an assistant at Geelong and Gold Coast, as well as a year at St Kilda in 2001, before winning the Port role as a 46-year-old.<\/p>\n

After leaving Port at the end of the 2025 season, Hinkley has spent this year in the media working for Fox Footy and SEN.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ken Hinkley will be announced as Tasmania\u2019s inaugural AFL coach less than 12 months after being moved on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":811260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-811259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}