AFL 2024: Matthew Nicks contract talks delayed amid Crows’ focus on Thebarton project
The Crows prioritising their Thebarton project has helped pushed back talks for Matthew Nicks’ contract extension.
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Adelaide having to prioritise its Thebarton project has helped delay a contract extension for coach Matthew Nicks.
The Crows are still expected to give Nicks a new deal in the next few months, but it may not happen until after the season starts.
In August, this masthead revealed that Adelaide was likely to hand the coach a two-year extension over summer as reward for the team’s improvement in 2023.
But the board is yet to formally consider the issue, as planning for the club’s $100m new home at Thebarton has ensured a massive workload requiring significant focus.
While Crows senior officials are very happy with Nicks, viewing him as a new-age coach who has helped build a strong culture, they will not publicly set a timeline like Port Adelaide last year.
The Power announced before the 2023 season that the club would not make a decision on coach Ken Hinkley’s future until August, then waited until then to re-sign him for two years.
Adelaide will ramp up talks about a Nicks extension after chief executive Tim Silvers returns from leave next week.
It looms as a key agenda item for the Crows’ board when it meets in mid-February.
Nicks steered Adelaide to 10th place with an 11-12 record last season – his fourth campaign in charge.
The Crows’ win tally under him has climbed from three at the start of their rebuild in 2020 (wooden spoon), to seven in 2021 (15th) and eight in 2022 (14th), before falling one victory short of finals in 2023.
Adelaide’s record against the competition’s best teams last year boosted Nicks’s credentials.
It beat grand final runner-up Brisbane, won both Showdowns for the first time since 2017 and got within a goal of upstaging premiership contenders Collingwood (twice), the Lions, Melbourne and Sydney.
Last week Nicks spent the week picking the brains of one of the country’s top coaches, Australian cricket leader Andrew McDonald, before and during the Adelaide Test.
Adelaide’s season begins away against Gold Coast on March 16.
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