Crows AFLW coach Matthew Clarke on injuries, league expansion and whether or not his side can go back-to-back in 2020
On the eve of Adelaide’s round one AFLW clash against Brisbane in Queensland, Crows coach Matthew Clarke talks footy philosophy, team injuries and going back-to-back.
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There’s something about Doc – aka Matthew Clarke, the head coach of the Crows’ AFLW team – that’s part joke-maker/part philosopher/part football guru.
Famous for his “dad jokes”, when it comes to his players he is their ultimate de-stresser, the bringer of calm and the dispenser of footballing wisdom.
For example, on day one of pre-season training in November, he stood in front of the squad and asked them to do some homework: Go home, he told them, and write down what you love about footy.
There was method to it: “From the outset, it’s always good for them to remember why they are here, and that footy’s fun and there’s something about it that’s drawing them to it,” he explains.
“And probably for the (eight) new players, particularly at the start of pre-season, they can be anxious or overwrought and it helps them just to relax and remember they’re just here playing footy, but with a different team.”
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This philosophy – that his players should play football because they love it, not because they have to – is in a similar vein to the mantras he gave them last season, too.
Crows star Erin Phillips revealed just before the team’s incredible 45-point grand final win over Carlton in March last year, that Clarke’s wisest words to her had been: “Run with pure joy in your heart”.
That philosophy clearly worked: Adelaide ran over the top of the rest, and was the standout team.
But 2020 is a brand-new year.
“That 2019 team was a great team, awesome, I loved it, but it doesn’t exist anymore,” Clarke muses.
“It’s changed and therefore this season is a new season and all of the variables that go into it start again.
“All the opposition teams have also been training really hard and they will have come up with some models they think will make them successful, and so for us last year pretty quickly becomes irrelevant.
“This season won’t be anything like last season … no two I have ever been involved with (as player or coach) have ever been the same.
“So, how do you make it new? You don’t. It just is.
“The overarching philosophies don’t change radically … the game’s still the game and the game hasn’t changed.
“The dynamics of this particular season will be different, but overarching that is it’s still just a game of footy.”
One philosophy he won’t buy into, however, is the one that gets bandied around often in sport: the hunter and the hunted.
The Crows – with a fully fit list – are clearly the competition’s hunted.
But don’t tell Clarke that.
“Once the umpire bounces the ball, it’s just another game,” he says.
“So I don’t know how much psychology goes into each contest.
“It comes down to: ‘Can you win that contest? Can you execute that skill? They’ve got the ball, can you defend? The psychology of the game is there, there’s no doubt, but I wonder if it’s that big a deal?”
Coaching the Crows undoubtedly brings Clarke a great deal of joy.
At last year’s grand final he thanked his players for welcoming him as one of their family, and he says the highlight of last season for him was a day spent jumping off cliffs into water at Darwin’s Litchfield National Park in pre-season.
But there is one thing that takes away that joy: injuries.
And watching five players go down with torn anterior cruciate ligaments in 2019 was particularly difficult.
Asked whether his side can create more footballing history by becoming the first AFLW team to win back-to-back grand finals he says, simply: “That’s the plan”.
“You don’t enter the comp if you don’t want to win it.”
That quest starts at 4.40pm on Saturday against the Lions in Queensland.