Ken Hinkley speaks on Carlton coaching vacancy

May 13, 2026 — 10:26am

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Former Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley has not ruled himself out of the vacant Carlton coaching job, but has given a ringing endorsement of another possible candidate for the job.

Hinkley told SEN on Wednesday that former Sydney coach John Longmire had all the attributes and experience to deliver the cultural overhaul needed at Carlton.

“I’d be fascinated if John Longmire wasn’t spoken about,” Hinkley said.

Due to turn 60 at the end of this season, Hinkley is four years older than Longmire.

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He hinted that his age would be a factor to consider when weighing up the “longish” job of rebuilding Carlton following the departure of his former protege Michael Voss on Tuesday.

“There’s a bit of work to be done on that list now, [speaking] from afar,” Hinkley said.

He said the Blues, under Voss, seemed incapable of playing “modern football for four quarters”; a nod to the lack of leg speed on Carlton’s playing list, as noted by a long list of football experts.

Hinkley, a best-and-fairest winner at Geelong in 1992, coached Port Adelaide for 13 seasons from 2013-25, amassing 15 finals appearances from 297 games and winning 59 per cent of the matches he was at the helm.

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His tenure overlapped with Longmire’s stint as Sydney coach (2011-2024), which netted the 2012 premiership for the Swans and wins from 63 per cent of the 333 games he coached.

Alongside that pair on the sidelines are experienced coaches Adam Simpson (West Coast 2014-24) and Nathan Buckley (Collingwood 2012-21), who coached against each other in the 2018 grand final.

However, Hinkley noted there is also a wealth of talented coaches presently working in assistant roles at clubs who are yet to be tried in a senior role but might ultimately have what the Blues are looking for.

Having previously said that he is a career coach presently trying a new profession in the media, Hinkley said anyone with serious coaching ambitions would take the opportunity to speak to the Blues about the vacancy, that will be filled in an interim capacity by Josh Fraser, who was an assistant at the club.

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“We had a project that was sizeable. The change in player personnel, the change in the coaches was significant,” Voss told the AFL website on Tuesday.

“So being able to bind that together and get that connecting really fast, and getting some level of cohesion, and doing it under the most extreme pressure, was maybe just too big a task to be able to handle

More to come

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