Adelaide news 2023: All the latest from Crows pre-season
A young Crow is training strongly and consistent senior footy could await this year. Plus, another fringe Crow is being trialled in a new position.
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He got his hands on and around plenty of players last season.
Now Adelaide’s Sam Berry wants to get his hands a lot more on the footy.
The 20-year-old tough as nails midfielder finished the 2022 season as the best tackler in the league with a total of 173 and an elite 9.5 per game.
SCROLL DOWN FOR ALL THE TRAINING INTEL
“It is not necessarily the first thing, the first thing is to get the ball,” he said.
“But if you can’t then that (tackling) is something that comes.
“It is just one of those things, it is an effort. I want to walk off the ground and feel like I’ve tried.
“I don’t think I hurt anyone … but I do enjoy a contest.
“It is a really competitive space when the ball is in the middle and you have to make a decision.”
The tackle count for Berry was more than double he managed in his debut season in 2021.
He also doubled his disposals from 154 to 317, with a big increase in his kicking.
Going into 2023 Berry said improving his average of 17.6 disposals a game was his big goal.
“I think just getting the ball a bit more and backing myself for a start. I think I did that a bit more towards the end of the season,” he said.
“I think just doing that consistently, it might be more of a mindset thing.”
Berry doesn’t have to look far for inspiration with reigning Crows best and fairest Rory Laird averaging 32 disposals for two consecutive seasons.
“I think with Lairdy he obviously prides himself on consistency and he does this week-in-week out,” Berry said.
“Probably the biggest thing I need to work on and gradually get better on is the mindset.
“Lairdy’s footwork is so good so he is always in the right spot at the right time and that is because he is always switched on during the game.
“I’ve done that in patches but I need to do it the whole game.”
In other observations from Wednesday’s session at West Lakes:
■ Despite only returning to the main group for the first time this pre-season last week, after building up his fitness and then coming down with Covid, Shane McAdam was in ripping touch in training. Despite sporting some significant strapping around his arm McAdam laid four big tackles across the drills and match-sim. One was on Kieran Strachan during a skill drill and then he hit Brayden Cook and Matt Crouch hard within seconds of each other when match-sim started to the delight of his teammates. “He is a powerful unit Shaneo, when he hits he hits hard,” Berry said.
■ Cook was on the end of another McAdam tackle later on during match sim. After playing as a forward and a wingman in his limited AFL appearances to date, Cook was deployed at half-back for a lot of the match-sim. Chayce Jones was on a wing while Jake Soligo played a high half-forward role for the majority of it. New recruit Tyler Brown was also deployed on a wing. Fellow new recruit Mark Keane is set to arrive from Ireland later this week.
■ Luke Pedlar continues to impress for the Crows this pre-season. Playing as a smaller forward, Pedlar is training strongly and might have gotten his body to a stage where it can handle AFL footy consistently. “It is hard to know and it is up to the coaches but Peds is in really good knick at the moment, he is training really well,” Berry said. Dashing defender Will Hamill also impressed during the match-sim, providing plenty of run off half-back.
■ A day after former captain Taylor Walker said he is a very good chance for Round 1 against GWS father-son draftee Max Michalanney showed why Crows players and coaches are so impressed with him. His kicking is clean and composed and with Josh Worrell still training on the sidelines Michalanney looked to be timing his run superbly.
WALKER DECLARES FATHER-SON A BIG DEBUT CHANCE IN ROUND 1
Adelaide talisman Taylor Walker has declared that father-son prospect Max Michalanney is a “big chance” to be in the Crows side when they take on GWS in Round 1 this year.
Michalanney, the son of Norwood great Jim, was eligible to be selected by the Crows under the father-son rule – which meant he headed to West Lakes when Adelaide matched a bid from Sydney at No. 17.
A 191cm defender, Michalanney has impressed so far at pre-season training for the Crows that Walker believes he can debut for Adelaide in Round 1 against the Giants in Sydney.
“Max Michalanney our number one draft pick from last year has been outstanding,” Walker said on Triple M.
“A good old Norwood boy. I reckon he is a big chance to play Round 1.”
The former Crows captain also revealed some of the other players that were catching the eye at training.
“Wayne Milera is looking very, very healthy off half-back,” he said.
“Elliott Himmelberg is training the absolute house down, he has been awesome.”
Izak Rankine is now training without a fluoro hat and is in full contact drills.
Walker said he was impressed by how the former Gold Coast Sun was looking.
“He is looking very good Izak, he has fitted in seamlessly and has added so much to our group,” he said.
“We know he is going to hit the scoreboard and hopefully we can fit him in the midfield at patches this year.”
The Crows are expected to make a call on whether Rory Sloane continues as their sole captain in February or whether there is instead a role for Jordan Dawson or Tom Doedee.
Walker, who was captain of the Crows from 2015 to 2019 and shared it with Sloane in his final year, said it was a decision that had to be up to his good friend.
“We will leave it up to him to decide whether he wants to continue,” he said.
The 32-year-old also revealed that he had moments where he had fallen out of love with footy, after former No. 6 draft pick Fischer McAsey made the decision to walk away from the Crows and the AFL at the age of 21.
“It is very sad that a kid like Fischer falls out of love with the game but we certainly wish him all the best,” he said.
“But it just opens up an opportunity for someone else.
“I would be lying if I said I haven’t been through that, I remember one pre-season training I was struggling to get to training.
“You end up getting there and you know why you end up getting there but I reckon you would be lying if you didn’t put your hand up and say you do fall out of love and it becomes a bit of a chore.
“But we are lucky to do what we do and that certainly straightens you up.”
FINALS FOOTY NOT A MATTER OF IF BUT WHEN FOR CROWS CEO
Matt Turner
Adelaide chief executive Tim Silvers says the Crows have to embrace external pressure as everyone at the club seeks to end a six-year finals drought in 2023.
The Crows are on an unprecedented run of not making the top eight since 2017 and with Matthew Nicks as the first coach at the club to keep his job after two seasons without September action.
With Nicks entering his fourth campaign and yet to finish above 14th, there is heightened expectation that Adelaide needs to climb several rungs up the ladder and push for finals this year.
Silvers said his leadership style was to “stay the course, believe in your path and believe in your people” amid external scrutiny.
“There’s pressure in AFL footy, on coaches, on CEOs, everyone in a club that’s going to feel the pressure,” Silvers told ABC Grandstand.
“I know being in South Australia for the last two years, there’ll be pressure coming, but we’ve got to embrace that and deliver on it.
“Every person on our list, every coach, every part of the club is aiming to play finals, and whichever club you’re part of you’re going to be aiming to play finals.
“We feel like we’re heading in the right direction.
“I know we’re going to improve as a club next year with the players that we’ve brought in with Izak Rankine et cetera, the challenge is are we going to be able to knock off the clubs that are in and around it (the finals) and at the top end of the ladder?”
Adelaide was 3-3 last year before going 5-11 to finish 11th.
Four of those five wins after round 7 were against the bottom two teams, West Coast and North Melbourne.
Nicks, who has an 18-42 overall record, is contracted until the end of 2024.
Only four coaches in the AFL era, since 1991, have completed four seasons without making the finals and kept their jobs: Gold Coast’s Stuart Dew (heading into his fifth year), St Kilda’s Alan Richardson (sacked midway through his sixth), Carlton’s Denis Pagan (dumped during his fifth) and Brisbane’s Robert Walls (left after fifth).
Silvers said Nicks was potentially feeling the pressure but was not someone to show it.
“He’s certainly got the buy-in of the group … and we think we’ve got a great leader,” he said.
“We think we play a finals brand of footy and it’ll stand up when we get there.”
Silvers said the Crows would not set themselves a pass mark, but he believed they could challenge the best teams.
“We just need to be more consistent,” he said.
Silvers also revealed the club had spoken to ruckman Reilly O’Brien about his Instagram post last month with controversial Canadian author Jordan Peterson, which was captioned “a great man” and sparked a backlash.
In June, Peterson was banned from Twitter after posting comments about transgender athletes and women, while in November he slammed Qantas for playing in-flight Welcome to Country messages that he described as “propaganda”.
Silvers said the Crows were very inclusive and a key pillar in their upcoming strategic plan was around diversity.
“We’ve discussed it with him and some of our leaders that what they put on their private platform, even though they’re entitled to their opinion, can have some impact on the club, so we’ve addressed that internally,” he said.
In a wide-ranging interview, Silvers also:
WAS noncommittal when asked if he expected Rory Sloane to captain the club again in 2023. “He’s our captain for the moment. We’ll go through that (leadership selection) process I think around mid-February. He’s been an outstanding leader for our club for a long period. Even when he was injured last year, he was still our captain off the field. He’s a values-based leader.”
SAID the delay to locking in details for the next AFLW season – as a new Collective Bargaining Agreement was being finalised – was “a bit embarrassing that we don’t have it all on the table”. “I understand the AFL are working feverishly through that,” he said. The Crows, who made the preliminary final last campaign, expected the women’s season to again start in August during the men’s competition’s pre-finals bye and have 10 minor rounds.
CALLED the Crows’ men’s home crowd averages last year of 31,429 – the club’s lowest outside of the 2020 and 2021 campaigns that were heavily affected by Covid – “a bit of a disappointment”.
Silvers thought Covid influenced attendances early in the 2022 campaign and there were no excuses at the back end, when they improved slightly. He said playing a style the fans could be proud of was a focus, while there were also plans to enhance the match-day experience. Silvers said he had been to watch several SA national-league sports teams over summer to get ideas and Adelaide was eyeing “innovative ideas” for the upcoming season.
WAS not overly concerned about star recruit Izak Rankine’s hamstring issue that led to him sitting out at training on Wednesday. “I think it’s just a little bit of tightness,” he said. “We’re going to take every precaution with our stars. He’s electric on the training track and you can see what an excitement machine he can be.”
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