Ken Hinkley must be on West Coast Eagles’ coaching radar, says Mick Malthouse

West Coast’s most successful coach Mick Malthouse has endorsed Ken Hinkley to step into the Eagles’ head role next season if he feels he can take Port Adelaide no further.

There are reports Hinkley and the Power have agreed that a loss to Hawthorn in Friday night’s first semi-final will trigger an amicable parting of ways.

Malthouse, who guided the Eagles to their first two premierships in 1992 and ’94 against a Geelong side featuring Hinkley as a player, said the veteran coach should be on West Coast’s radar if available.

“No doubt. Very good coach,” Malthouse told ABC Extra Time.

“You won’t get anyone more honest than he is. Got some good techniques as far as coaching goes. I think he’s got the best out of the sides he’s had.

“He’s proven he’s a very, very good coach.”

Hinkley will match Mark Williams’ 273-game stint to become the club’s equal-longest serving AFL coach on Friday night.

He has led the Power to seven finals series in 12 seasons at Alberton and has a strong overall winning percentage of 60.29, but the team also has a 3-5 record against higher-ranked sides in finals and is yet to reach a decider on his watch.

A loss on Friday night would mean successive straight-sets finals exits after finishing in the top four.

“Will they sack him? I’ve got no idea. Will he move? Ken is a realist,” Malthouse said.

“I reckon if they do go out in straight sets again – and I am not trying to jump in his shoes by any stretch – but the feeling I would get out of Ken Hinkley would be ‘You know what, I don’t think I can get any more out of it and oh, there is a job or maybe they are offering me an interview at West Coast... yeah, I might do that’.

“But he would only do that if he thought he couldn’t get another surge at Port to have another plug at it and they have got to be on board.

“There is a lot to flow under the bridge, but it is a possibility.”

The Power lost their qualifying final to Geelong at Adelaide Oval by 84 points, triggering a backlash among Port fans with club signs vandalised by fans plastering “sack Hinkley” stickers at Power headquarters.

Hinkley is contracted until the end of next year, with current Port Adelaide assistant Josh Carr touted as Hinkley’s successor should the club and coach part ways.

Former AFL caretaker coaches Andrew McQualter and Steven King as well as Greater Western Sydney assistant Brett Montgomery are believed to be on the Eagles’ shortlist, with Western Bulldogs assistant Brendon Lade also in the conversation.

The high expectations placed on the Eagles would not be foreign to Hinkley, with South Australia also a football mad two-team AFL town.

Malthouse asked whether Port Adelaide had overachieved under Hinkley and said their midfielders were “downhill skiers”.

“There is no question that (Connor) Rozee, (Zak) Butters and (Jason) Horne-Francis, they are very good in June, July when it is snowing in the mountains,” Malthouse said.

“But in August-September when it starts to thaw out, they cannot go the other way. That’s why Geelong was able to get them.

“I think Hinkley has been judged on what everyone hopes they can do as opposed to what they can do.”

Malthouse described as “staggering” the number of high-profile candidates who have pulled out of the race to replace Adam Simpson as West Coast coach.

“There’s a few things. It is a big club. It’s had a wonderful, wonderful record and that scares people,” he said.

“Because the board, media, supporters will judge the coach on what the past looks like, which has been highly successful.

“They will have to look at family situation, and that is the price you pay in this job, you sometimes have to move around. Big deal. Western Australia is a great place to live, a great place to bring a family up.

“So, I’m staggered, I really don’t get why there is such an apprehension, because clubs can turn it around very quickly in AFL through free agency or being on the bottom or being thereabouts and dragging out a couple of key players.

“Most clubs are only two or three players off being any good.”