Fox Footy pundits have called out Port Adelaide’s Jason Horne-Francis’ defensive efforts, saying he “has to change” and that Ken Hinkley has a “challenge” to remove such blemishes such from the 19-year old’s game.
In vision on Fox Footy’s First Crack from Saturday night’s’ Power-Crows Showdown, Horne-Francis is shown not running back hard defensively as Josh Rachele runs through centre-half forward and kicks a long-range goal from the 50m arc.
For dual premiership Kangaroo David King, it’s become a concerning trend in Horne-Francis’ game.
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“I’m going to show this bit of vision … not because this is just a one-off event, this is every week, more than one time,” King said on First Crack.
“This occasion, it’s a defensive effort, it’s not staying invested in the game. We showed (Touk) Miller and all these guys from the Gold Coast Suns before giving their life to put pressure on.
“That is not that, that is well short of that. Ken Hinkley’s got a challenge to get this out of this guy’s game in a hurry.
“If he’s going to be the team player they need him to be, he has to put pressure on there.
“That’s too easy to allow Rachele to stroll in and knock it through from 50, that has to change.”
St Kilda great Leigh Montagna was also critical of Horne-Francis, but noted that the former No. 1 draft pick is still honing his craft at the top level.
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“He’s got a flaw — but so does every 19-year old or second-year player, it’s just an obvious flaw to the eye,” Montagna said.
To which King responded: “It’s a big flaw, not engaging in the team defence.”
Montagna however believes multiple Power players’ efforts would be damning when they’re reviewed.
“ There will be a lot of players getting reviewed tomorrow morning that would have not engaged … it’s an obvious one because he almost stops to a walk,” he said.
“It’s quite a stark and obvious one that stands out.”
Saturday night’s loss to Adelaide saw Port fall to 1-2 on the season, occupying 13th on the ladder with a percentage of 85.2 in a season where the out-of-contract Hinkley faces pressure.
Port Adelaide Power Press Conference | 09:33
And King thinks Hinkley over the last fortnight has made two big blunders in the coaches box — first assigning Lachie Jones to Nick Daicos, who easily overcame the tag with 32 disposals and two goals, before putting skipper Tom Jonas on Izak Rankine, who booted four majors in a masterful performance.
“When you’re coaching, you can’t make errors on a Wednesday that affect a Saturday — and they’ve made two glaring errors in the last two weeks,” King said.
“The tag of Lachie Jones on Nick Daicos was a compete bust, it was gone in 15 minutes. They put a young man to a job he couldn’t deliver upon, that’s a horrendous match committee decision.
“So they roll forward again and go with the captain against Rankine, he had no hope.
“They’re two game-breaking players — Daicos and Rankine are probably the best-performed players for their team — and they’ve got the matchup wrong twice.
“You can’t make those errors and expect to sail through keeping your job in a year where you’ve got to stack the wins.
“Big pressure on Ken Hinkley now.”
