It had been all smiles at Alberton over the summer and during the first five premiership games as Hinkley delivered the club's best-ever start to a season.
But things soured and three consecutive losses ensued.
The last time Port Adelaide started the season with a 5-3 record was in 2010 under the tutelage of premiership-winning coach Mark Williams; the club lost the next eight games and Williams was sacked before season's end.
Even last year the Power started in encouraging fashion, albeit on the wrong end of several narrow losses, only to crumble and slump their way through another coach-ending season.
Ebert told AFL.com.au Hinkley's straight-bat attitude mixed with his ability to massage egos at just the right time meant the side wouldn't suffer the same fate again.
"You've got to be hard in the way you review games and Kenny Hinkley and 'Richo' (Alan Richardson) are both quite like that and all the coaches are the same, they review the games quite hard," Ebert said.
"They expect a fair bit.
"But they're all good at being able to go from reviewing the game hard to saying 'you are still playing well' and keeping everybody upbeat and seeing the good things they are doing."
The 23-year-old, who took on the vice captaincy this year, insisted there was plenty to like over the past three weeks despite the scoreboard failures.
His side has finished games stronger than almost anyone else in the AFL this season, winning six of their eight second halves (second only to Essendon).
He put that down to pre-season work by high performance manager Darren Burgess who has the Power fitter than ever before.
There have been 10-minute periods where the team has slackened off and let the opposition get away, but they're yet to endure a thrashing.
"We're always pretty disappointed when we lose and everyone gets pretty down initially, but when you actually talk about it and go through the game, there are situations where you know you could have won," Ebert said.
"Although that is annoying, you can really learn from that and work on ways to win the next week.
"We're still able to run out games so it gives us confidence that we can still perform.
"Everyone's still quite upbeat considering we've lost three in a row, everyone's still quite confident that 'we can win this'."
As for his own game as a new leader, Ebert said he had hardly changed.
"Nothing really's changed for me personally, I still try and get around and have a joke with the boys, have a bit of fun," he said.
"It's nice to sit in on the leadership meetings and have your say and on game day there's probably a little more responsibility to make sure you're performing … but I quite enjoy it."
Harry Thring is a reporter for AFL Media. Follow him on Twitter: @AFL_Harry
