Michael McGuire: The Adelaide Crows need to address long-standing cultural problems if they want to succeed
Adelaide Football Clubs needs to address long-standing cultural issues if they want to succeed. The big problem is their problem is also South Australia’s.
Opinion
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The Crows have become mired in the kind of mediocrity for two decades that will need more than just a new coach to sort out.
When the Crows last won a flag in 1998, there were 16 teams in the competition.
There was no Gold Coast.
No GWS.
Since then, 11 of those 16 teams have won at least one flag. The others in Adelaide’s class of failure are Melbourne, St Kilda, Carlton and Fremantle. That’s some pretty miserable company right there.
But the Crows, in my book, are the biggest failures where it matters – on the field.
All those other clubs have at different times been complete basket cases.
The Crows, on the other hand, have been relatively well run, stable, mostly profitable and have had a generally docile fan base that hasn’t kicked up too much trouble.
The Crows have had a list of players that rank among their greats; Ricciuto, Goodwin, McLeod, Edwards, Dangerfield, Sloane.
It’s almost harder for the Crows not to have won a premiership since 1998 than to have won one.
There has been a bit of talk in the last weeks, as the Crows imploded and shed players and coaches, that the culture of the place had turned since its limp grand final performance in 2017.
But the reality is, looking from the outside, is that its culture has been a problem since the club was started in 1990. Adelaide was a giant club in a small town, the No.1 attraction. Its players were feted and treated as heroes. The Crows developed a belief they were bigger than the town, untouchable.
Back in 2016, not long after Andrew Fagan had been appointed as chief executive, he said in an interview that the Adelaide goldfish bowl did have an impact.
“If you play a few good games, you are a Brownlow Medal favourite. If you win a few games we are a flag favourite. If you lose a few games, people have to go. Maybe you become complacent at the top end and maybe you react at the bottom end,” he said.
They are certainly reacting now.
Port Adelaide has different cultural issues; it struggles to cast off the sense of entitlement to success that defined them in the SANFL and hasn’t won the AFL flag in 15 years.
But as a state we struggle to compete in national sporting terms.
Look at South Australian cricket. The Redbacks haven’t won the Sheffield Shield since 1996. Worse, they have finished bottom 12 times since 1996, including the last two years.
SA is also the only state not to have produced an Australian cricketer that has played 100 Test matches. How can we be this bad?
But like, the Adelaide Crows, the SACA represents whatever passes for the Adelaide establishment. And it’s a small town so no one likes to make waves. No one wants to upset a mate they might run into at the Test match or in a corporate box at the footy. So nothing gets done, nothing changes.
It doesn’t look much better across other sports. The Thunderbirds haven’t won a title since 2013, the Lightning since 2008, the 36ers since 2002.
Adelaide United offers the odd bit of hope, winning a grand final in 2016 as well as two FFA cups, with possibly another one next week. Maybe it’s because they are exposed to a bigger, more ruthless world game than the Crows or cricketers.
There has been plenty of sound and fury out of the Crows in recent weeks. But if they want to break this cycle of inadequacy they still have a long way to go.