VETERAN Travis Boak will be sidelined again by injury when Port Adelaide makes a rare trip to Ballarat to play the Western Bulldogs.
Boak will miss his second consecutive game because of back complaint when the Power meet the Dogs on Saturday.
“He has had some more stuff done this week.
“I spoke to him this morning actually, he’s quite bullish about how he feels this morning.
“So hopefully that continues on and he’s not too far away from being available in the near future.”
Hinkley must find a replacement for half-back Josh Sinn, who was concussed in a tackle from North Melbourne forward Paul Curtis.
The Power coach described Curtis’ three-game ban for rough conduct as “an unfortunate suspension”.
“I would normally think that shouldn’t be a suspension,” Hinkley said.
“But my educated view would say, I’m not at all surprised it is a suspension in today’s world.
“It’s just a change in landscape around concussion and injury and all those things that go with it.
“Curtis, in my view, didn’t do too much wrong … but I understand the consequence of concussion these days.
“It makes it a real challenge if you make that tackle and I would have thought every player knows if the tackle goes wrong, you could be in some trouble.”
Port hasn’t played the Bulldogs in Ballarat since 2018 – the Power won that game and the only other clash of the clubs there the previous year.
“But we have got some understanding of the ground.
“We know what it’s like. We know what it presents. We know the challenges of playing at Ballarat.
“But once the game starts, we don’t really look at the scenery too much to see where we’re playing, we just play.”
