As the Crows AFLW pre-season gets into full swing, Liz Walsh is given exclusive access behind-the-scenes at training
Inaugural AFLW premiers the Adelaide Crows are setting their sights on more success in season three. See the grit on the faces and the determination in their eyes.
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“You ready?” Erin Phillips scrolls through the music playlist on her phone. She smiles when she finds it and stretches out her arms.
It’s a balmy Monday night at the West Lakes headquarters of the Adelaide Football Club and Crows AFLW training is in full swing.
Phillips’s legs are slowly turning over the pedals on an exercise bike, which has just been placed on the boundary line of the old Footy Park. Teammates jog past, running laps. They’ve all just finished their skills session; now it’s time for good, old-fashioned fitness.
Courtney Cramey steps on to another exercise bike.
Phillips turns to her as the music starts. She raises her drink bottle to her mouth as a faux microphone and starts to sing: “First, when there’s nothing, but a slow glowing dream, that your fear seems to hide, deep inside your mind …”
Those famous lyrics of What a Feeling from the 1980s cult movie Flashdance, ring out across the oval.
But the smiles soon stop as the first cycle interval spurt starts and it’s all introspective hard work from there. It should come as no surprise that a song like this should be in Phillips’s music collection; after all, it’s all about passion and working hard to make dreams come true.
That’s precisely what AFLW is all about. And if anyone needs proof of how important the upcoming Season 3 is to the Crows players, they need look no further than Cramey’s face as she cycles intervals alongside Phillips and Jessica Sedunary.
Once described by Premiership coach Bec Goddard as the Crows’ “defensive general”, the 33-year-old former All-Australian’s face strains as she pushes her legs to the limit.
There is no success without hard work. Music is a theme at Crowland this pre-season. Whether inside the impressive indoor facilities or outdoors on the oval — now surrounded by the semi-demolished grandstands — players have been rotating their playlists at each session and it blares over the players.
Tonight, it’s been largely country-music themed, and incoming coach Matthew Clarke won’t reveal which player has picked it.
“Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s average,” he says with a laugh.
So, who knows whether Phillips has hijacked the music with What a Feeling, or whether it’s been her picks all evening. But before long a 90s theme starts up and on comes the Spice Girls. Next S Club 7.
Because the burgeoning women’s competition is semi-professional, pre-season trainings take place three evenings a week to accommodate those who work, including medical doctor and new recruit Jessica Foley.
That will change when their season starts on February 2 and it will drop down to two evening weekday sessions. Clarke says he’s been impressed with the level of intensity and dedication shown by the players in the lead up to the new season.
“They’re working really hard,” he says, but finds it difficult to single out a standout on the track so far. Marijana Rajcic? Ebony Marinoff? New draftee Nikki Gore?
“We actually sat and started thinking about the selection of the team for the first time and it was really challenging, they’re all going really well, so I’d be reluctant to pick one out,” he says. “They’re flying. The other nine clubs are all probably saying the same stuff, but we’re happy with everything they’ve done and we’re having fun too, which is good.”
There’s been a particular focus this pre-season on skill development and Clarke is confident the side will head into the 2019 competition improved in that department — and will only continue to improve. “We’ve progressed,” he says, “but there’s a long way to go in the skills fundamentals.
“We’ll keep smashing into it, there will still be a massive up-lift in the competition probably forever, but certainly over the next four or five years there will be massive gains made just in pure skills acquisition.”
And, just as other women’s sports are seeing now, that skills acquisition is going to make for exciting games to watch. New to the head coaching position, Clarke brings his own brand of calm to the role. There’s something truly self-deprecating and friendly about him.
Asked how he would describe himself as a coach, he answers with a smile: “Hoarse”. But adds: “I think I’m the same as I’ve always been; glass half full”.
With a third of the 30-player squad new to the team, he’s particularly pleased with how well they’ve slotted in.
“We’ve done a really good job of integrating the new players, and that pretty much falls to the players,” he says. “They’ve invested a lot of time in those first weeks, invested a truck load of time, in getting those new players inducted — for want of a better word — into the culture of the club that has been developed over the first two seasons and that’s been highlighted by the strong leaders who they drove that.” The club’s inaugural co-captains — Phillips and Chelsea Randall — are yet to be reappointed, with captain/s to be announced early in the new year. But both are leaders on and off the field and both are looking lean. Fearsomely muscular.
As Phillips continues to cycle her sprints on the exercise bike, beads of sweat now dripping from her face and no sign of the quad injury that stymied her last season, the majority of the team continue running their laps. Assistant coach Andrew McLeod runs alongside Sarah Perkins, while the hardworking Gore is out in front.
Another new recruit, Katelyn Rosenzweig is sitting this out, as she recovers from minor surgery to her neck, and she’s happy to report that she’ll soon return to full training.
At the beginning of the session, as the players gathered around each other to go over on-field structures and game plans, Clarke posed a question to the players and asks them to spend the next few days thinking of their answer:
“What’s the most brave thing you’ve ever done and how did you feel afterwards”.
Without knowing the answer, for many of them, the most brave thing they’ve done could be pulling on the footy boots. And how did it make them feel afterwards? What a feeling!
CROWS 2019 AFLW DRAW
ROUND 1
Saturday, February 2
Adelaide v Western Bulldogs (Norwood Oval) 8.10pm
ROUND 2
Sunday, February 10
Carlton v Adelaide (Ikon Park) 3.35pm
ROUND 3
Sunday, February 17
Adelaide v Geelong (Norwood Oval) 2.05pm
ROUND 4
Saturday, February 23
Adelaide v Fremantle (TIO Stadium) 7.05pm
ROUND 5
Sunday, March 3
North Melbourne v Adelaide (Avalon Airport Oval) 3.35pm
ROUND 6
Sunday, March 10
Adelaide v GWS Giants (Unley Oval) 1.35pm
ROUND 7
Saturday, March 16
Melbourne v Adelaide (Casey Fields) 4.15pm
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