Adelaide Crows: Matthew Nicks hopes players aren’t ‘smashed’ by AFL for training breach in Barossa Valley
Adelaide Crows are still waiting on what punishments are in store from the AFL for its training breach in the Barossa Valley. Matthew Nicks hopes the players involved aren’t “smashed”.
AFL
Don't miss out on the headlines from AFL. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- Crows investigated for training protocols breach in Barossa Valley
- How to get the most out of your Advertiser digital subscription
Adelaide Crows coach Matthew Nicks says he hopes his players who are at the centre of a breach of AFL training protocols while quarantining in the Barossa Valley aren’t “smashed” by the league for the incident.
The AFL yesterday held off announcing any punishment for the Crows for the breach of its strict training protocols – which was reported to the league by a group of eagle-eyed golfers who spotted the 16 players on the Tanunda Pines golf course.
Nicks said while the club had to cop any penalties issued their way he hoped the players involved, mostly consisting of first to fourth year players who returned from interstate, were not harshly punished for the mistake.
“I’d be devastated to know that any of our players were smashed with this,” Nicks said on Fox Footy Live.
“I totally understand though, if you talk current environment, why some people believe the punishment should be strong. But I think if you get an understanding of exactly how this played out, hopefully our guys will come through the other end of it.”
The incident came towards the end of the Crows’ players first training session on a sectioned-off area of the golf course – which is next to the Novotel resort they are doing their 14-day self-quarantine period at – when eight players came in the near vicinity of each other during a kicking drill.
“I’m led to believe that the players came together then at a point and ended up with four pairs knocking balls around, and that is similar to drills that we do in the season,” Nicks said.
“Even those these players are still 15, 20, 30 metres away from each other it’s actually a group activity.
“I can’t guarantee that a player wasn’t within 1.5 metres running past another player.
“But what I can say is the way the boys have explained it to me, they were knocking balls around and they made a mistake, they had a group of eight knocking balls between each other.”
MORE FOOTY NEWS
SANFL reveals competition restart date
Kochie calls Malthouse a “dinosaur” for China criticism
Port’s 50 greatest players: 20-11
The Crows will not face any punishment from SA Police, but there have been calls for the AFL to level heavy sanctions against the club for the breach.
Nicks told The Advertiser on Friday assistant coach Ben Hart, who is with the players self-isolating and was involved in the session, would not face any internal punishment for the breach.
Adelaide head of football Adam Kelly said he hoped there would be no scapegoat from this.
“We had a request that went into the relevant authorities for our players to quarantine in a property at the Barossa and the same restrictions were placed on our players as would be anyone else who is self-quarantining to not leave the boundaries of the property,” he said on Grandstand SA.
“So we went through the appropriate channels, yes we identified a solution that would allow our players to have more space to move around in and we did that out of interest for our players, for their mental and physical wellbeing that they can isolate at a property away from the public and they are all subject to the same self-self-quarantine provisions.”
The 16 players will remain at the Barossa but will now exercise individually within the resort’s grounds after the Crows finalised an exemption with SAPOL.
Port Adelaide chairman David Koch questioned why the Crows sent the players to the resort.
“We’ve had to stand down staff, a lot of staff and retrenched a lot of staff like every AFL club has,” he said on Fox Footy Live.
“And this is just my view, I couldn’t personally justify putting a bunch of players up at a resort for two weeks when we had staff not being paid, when they have home accommodation for themselves.”
Port players who went interstate have returned and are in self-quarantine in Adelaide, although young gun Mitch Georgiades has moved in with Sam Powell-Pepper and Travis Boak at their place for his 14-day isolation period.