Ken Hinkley's cheeky dig at Jack Ginnivan amid storm around Hawthorn-Port Adelaide clash

Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley has taken a cheeky swipe at Hawks star Jack Ginnivan after the small forward made the cocky call that the Hawks will be facing Sydney in the prelim final despite still needing to get past the Power on Friday first. In response, Hinkley wrapped up his pre-match press conference on Thursday by telling reporters he'll see them next week ahead of the Swans game, in what was a light-hearted dig at Ginnivan.

His remark comes after Ginnivan landed himself in the headlines once again for writing on social media 'See you in 14 days', in response to a post from Swans player Brodie Grundy who was celebrating Sydney's win over GWS last weekend. Ginnivan's comment suggested the Hawks would without a doubt beat Port Adelaide this weekend and advance to face Sydney in the preliminary final.

And the comment did not go down well with many in the AFL world. Hawks legend Luke Hodge was one of many who criticised his remark, saying all it did was provide Port with even more "ammunition" for this weekend's clash.

“When it comes to social media stuff, one thing you don’t do is give ammunition to the opposition," Hodge said on SEN radio. "He’s having a bit of a joke, he played two years with Grundy at Collingwood. So they know each other and it’s probably a bit of banter. But what you do is you send banter in a text message, you don’t put it out in the open for Port Adelaide to sit there and go: ‘Let’s use this and get stuck into Ginnivan’."

While Port Adelaide great Kane Cornes said Ginnivan's remarks created just another "distraction" the Hawks didn't need. “He thinks he’s won already, he’s got to come to Adelaide on Friday night first. Is there anyone who can read the room less than Jack Ginnivan?,” Cornes said.

“It’s all working beautifully for him at the moment, Hawthorn is embracing him and happy for him to go to the pub before a game ... but when you get ahead of yourself and it may be half a per cent motivation for Port Adelaide extra - Ginnivan thinks he’s already through to a prelim final."

Ken Hinkley takes light-hearted swipe at Jack Ginnivan remark

And Ginnivan's comments led to Hinkley taking his own dig back, saying as he left Thursday's press conference with a big smirk: "Thanks guys see you next week". The 'next week line' was a clear jab at Ginnivan and also a show of confidence that Port can turn things around from their second-biggest AFL finals loss in club history.

The 57-year-old holds the unwanted record of coaching the most games in VFL/AFL history without reaching a grand final and is under pressure to make a deep finals run. Hinkley is contracted until the end of next season but if Port lose again the club would have exited the finals with consecutive defeats for a second-straight season. And many believe if that happens he may find himself without a job.

When asked if this was the biggest week in his tenure on Thursday, Hinkley said: "That is not stuff that we spend time on." "We know exactly what we're doing internally and the direction that we're going and what we're trying to achieve. We don't need to get distracted by anything other than this week's performance."

Hinkley says both he and his playing group had quickly moved on from their 20.18 (138) to 7.12 (54) qualifying final defeat and are raring to go on Friday. "Biggest reflection on the game from last week is that you've just got to be ready to go right from the very start at this time of the year against every team," Hinkley said.

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"And if you don't have a contest level that's at a required level, you're going to get yourself in trouble and then everything else can fall down really quickly. You always reflect when things don't go the way you want it and you're looking for some type of answer in some ways, individually, whether that be players or coaches or whoever, people outside the fence. We all have a view on what was wrong. We know we got it really badly wrong last week and the team we played against smashed us."