Cornes takes a blowtorch to “unfit, weak, selfish” Port Adelaide

Port Adelaide’s performance against Collingwood on Saturday night has been flamed by club great Kane Cornes.

The Power were smashed by 91 points at the MCG in their first official game since the Ken Hinkley to Josh Carr handover at season’s end was announced.

Cornes, a Port 300-gamer and four-time John Cahill Medallist, was scathing of his former club when assessing their subpar showing.

He was also critical of list manager Jason Cripps for letting Dan Houston join the Magpies in the trade period only to witness him star for his new club with 27 disposals, 10 intercepts, six score involvements and five tackles.

“The biggest loser for the weekend was Port Adelaide,” Cornes said on SEN Breakfast.

“This is how I’ve summed them up: unfit, weak, slow, selfish and lacking skill.

“But who do we blame? Is it Kenny? Is it Carr? Is it Cripps? Or is it Kochy (president David Koch)?

“They thought it was a good idea to trade away one of your best players who was contracted and give away a future first-round pick in the mix of all these trades for not much.

“So if you’re going to do that and you perform like that and you end up being a bottom six side and you’ve given away your first pick and the bloke that you let go, who was contracted to your club, plays a starring role for a club that beats you by 91 points - I think he’s worthy of being thrown into the mix.”

Cornes was critical of the coaching handover, wondering if Hinkley could step aside well before the end of the season.

“I just thought it would be a waste of a year before it even started,” Cornes said.

“When you sack your coach but you still keep him in the chair, it’s never going to end well.

“Could it come to an early end?”

Co-host David King suggests it is a question of respect with how they treat Hinkley in his exit year.

However, he also wonders if the 58-year-old might ponder an early departure if results do not go the way of his team in the coming months.

“All they’re doing at the moment is about the respect for Ken on the way out,” said King.

“I think sometimes it can go the other way. Maybe Ken needs to go to them and say, ‘Look, you’ve been so good to me, this is causing a few problems, it’s going to be a conversation every week, its going to be unhealthy for all of us. I need to give Josh some clear air, I need to get out of here’.

“That’s what has got to happen. I think Ken needs to see that. I think that’s a smart solution for everybody.

“The problem they have is this won’t be a one-week conversation, this will be an every-week conversation. We’re one week in and it’s a smashing at the MCG.

“We’ll be talking about them every week. This is going to drag on.”

Cornes chimed in: “It was a bad idea.”

King concluded: “It was a bad idea and a bad idea getting worse.”

Port will look to bounce back swiftly when they host Richmond at the Adelaide Oval in Round 2 on Saturday from 4:15pm AEDT.