The expectations are the Crows will make the eight this year, but coach Matthew Nicks’ future should not depend on it | Graham Cornes

The Adelaide Crows players play for their coach, which is why Matthew Nicks deserves to complete this rebuild writes Graham Cornes.

Matthew Nicks would have taken note. Fremantle announced an extension to coach Justin Longmuir’s contract this week. His team finished in 14th position on the ladder last year.

It was a significant fall from grace after they had climbed to sixth in 2022. This contract extension can be seen as a vote of confidence in Longmuir and his philosophies, which may be true. However, it’s more likely the extension has been enacted to quell any speculation about his future.

Besides, he’s always been impressive. He looks the stoic, silent type who is not prone to outbursts of emotion. At times his team has played impressive football, but not often enough.

It’s a malaise both Western Australian teams are experiencing. The West Coast Eagles are in a far worse situation, but their coach, Adam Simpson, delivered them football’s Holy Grail in 2018, as well as taking them to a grand final in 2015.

Matthew Nicks, Senior Coach of the Crows. Picture: Will Russell/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Guiding your team to a grand final and then to a premiership gives you considerable traction even if it has now slumped to be the worst team in the competition. However, Simpson doesn’t have to worry about contract extensions. When the time comes to leave, it will be his decision.

Matthew Nicks doesn’t have that leverage. He is at the mercy of the club, a club he’s been at for four long years. It wasn’t his fault that the team, through a combination of factors, had bottomed out. He was the one selected to piece it all together again.

Some saw it as a poisoned chalice. The team was in a downward spiral which he couldn’t immediately reverse. The club’s darkest moment was losing coach Phil Walsh in the most grievous of circumstances, but finishing 18th on the ladder was a football tragedy.

The stigma of the wooden-spoon can take decades to expunge. Through it all, however, Nicks has remained steadfast. No Crows coach has had a tougher job, yet you wouldn’t know it. He has always presented with a positive, optimistic demeanour. A fan would always feel confident that he had a plan. The improvement has been steady and now, when the bad times look well and truly over, his coaching tenure is not secure beyond this season.

It’s time the club extended Matthew Nicks’ contract.

There are several reasons for this. The first is obvious. If the team makes the finals, hindsight will prove that it was a good decision. However, if the team does not make the finals in season 2023 - a situation that is not entirely unlikely – it’s just as important.

Despite the old-school mentality that the word “rebuild” is concocted as an excuse for incompetence and poor planning, Matthew Nicks has had to rebuild this team from ground zero. It’s been steady, upward progress. From 18th, to 15th, to 14th and then to last season’s hard-luck story of 10th, there has been improvement every season.

Crows training at Richmond Oval. Coach Matthew Nicks talks to players. Picture: Brett Hartwig

But re-builds are rarely achieved without the occasional setback. The expectations are that the Crows will make the eight this year, but Nicks’s future should not depend on it, although there are some who think otherwise.

The AFL Record: Season Guide 2024, that Bible of football information and statistics, says in its profile of Matthew Nicks: “He is entering his fifth season but without a deal in place for next year and beyond. Not many coaches make it to a sixth year without at least one final to show for it, hence the pressure to make it to this September.”

I’m not sure if the clubs have to approve the copy about their players and their coaching staff but it’s a blatant challenge that Nicks’s tenure depends on the team making the finals.

But nothing is guaranteed. One cannot simply assume there will be improvement every season. Sometimes you have to take a step backwards to move forward.

The Crows have a tough draw, particularly early in the season. To fall behind in the win/loss ratio early in the season would bring extra pressure to bear. We saw it last year at Port Adelaide, with the constant speculation of Ken Hinkley’s position.

Very few could survive the undermining pressure that Hinkley had to endure, and normally it sounds the death knell of the coach’s position. But at Port the opposite happened. Hinkley and the team proceeded to win 13 games in a row, temporarily silencing the critics and cementing themselves in the top four by the time finals came around.

However, it is rare that a coach and team that is under so much pressure is able to withstand it. Adelaide does not need that experiment. It inevitably ends in tears with the coach departing. Then the process starts again.

Matthew Nicks, signs his autograph for fans after a game. Picture: Mark Brake/Getty Images)

The general football public would have no idea of the difficulties Nicks has had to endure at West Lakes. Where once the Adelaide Football Club’s facilities were the envy of the competition, the football environment slowly deteriorated.

As the football precinct of West Lakes was slowly consumed by residential and commercial developments, the Crows clubrooms and that once nationally famous footy oval became increasingly isolated.

How can you build a footy spirit when confronted daily by the desolation of building sites and developments? New state-of-the-art facilities and clubrooms at Thebarton might be promised but to Nicks and his players they are still a fantasy.

Then there were the club’s list management challenges over which he has had little say. Too many good players have gone. Too many of those ex-Crows have achieved the ultimate success at other clubs. Think Lever, Gunston, Stengle, Dangerfield; and even watching Mitch McGovern star in defence for Carlton on Thursday night, reminded us that he once was a Crows player.

How they need another tall defender now. And don’t mention Charlie Cameron.

But slowly the list is taking shape. More importantly, the players respond to Nicks. You can tell by the way they lay it on the line for their coach.

Adelaide may have been beaten last year by teams with better players and a better-balanced line-up but not by a lack of effort.

The Crows players play for their coach, which is why Nicks deserves to complete this rebuild.