Matthew Nicks can succeed as Crows coach but needs some help

Matthew Nicks has inherited the huge job of rebuilding the Crows. He is capable of turning the team’s fortunes around but it will take time and he needs help, writes Graham Cornes.

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Did Matthew Nicks know the enormity of the task in front of him when he applied for the senior coaching position at the Adelaide Football Club?

How was he to know he was being tasked with a complete rebuild of the playing list that had dominated the competition just two years earlier?

From afar that playing list didn’t look too bad.

There was the nucleus of a team that had played in a grand final, a solid defence and a mid-field that could win the hard ball in the centre as well as any.

His main task it would have appeared back in November 2019 was to rebuild the morale of a group that had been psychologically pummelled.

He then had to establish player/coach/football department connections that had become frayed in the previous 24 months.

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In hindsight it is now a much bigger job than it originally seemed.

The club did offer to support the rookie coach with a wise, older, experienced senior assistant but it was the new coach’s desire to do it his way.

Of course the honeymoon period went extremely well. There was an uplifting, positive vibe around the club driven by an enthusiastic, charismatic new leader.

It’s always a great time at a footy club when there is no match day competition to test the ability and character of the team.

However, just as the best-laid battle plans can disintegrate in the face of a determined enemy onslaught, so too does morale and confidence evaporate when tested by superior opponents.

It’s a football mystery what has happened to the Crows playing list.

Does Nicks look at those departed Crows players and wonder if his team would be stronger if they were still here?

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He saw plenty of Hugh Greenwood last week but would Greenwood have figured in his long-term plans for the Crows? Probably not, but he would have been handy last week.

In all, nine players left the club, were traded or retired before Nicks took up his appointment. It’s true that a couple of them (Keath, Betts, Jacobs, Greenwood – even Jenkins) would be useful in this time of crisis but older players do have to be moved on if a list is to be rejuvenated – particularly if they are clogging up the salary cap.

Nevertheless, Nicks wasn’t around when those key decisions were made on players that were being poached by other clubs or being moved on by Adelaide.

Would it have made a difference if he could have spoken to Alex Keath and Hugh Greenwood?

He couldn’t have offered them more money because Adelaide, like Port Adelaide, has nowhere to move in its salary cap.

The Crows don’t have a million dollar marqué player, preferring instead to spread the salary cap more evenly amongst its playing group.

So there was no more money. What he undoubtedly could have done though is attempt to persuade them to stay by appealing to their loyalty and sense of team. Remember those qualities?

Sadly, with every new trade period, it’s obvious there is little regard in modern football for loyalty and love of the jumper?

The “go-home factor” is overpowering particularly if the money on offer and the length of contract is better.

Previously overlooked interstate footballers like Cameron, Keath, Greenwood and Henderson are happy to take accept the Crows rookie lifeline into the AFL but jump at the opportunity to move for better money.

Player managers are as much to blame as any for the erosion of that once priceless commodity of club loyalty.

Once a player starts to realise his potential, they start to shop him around (sometimes deviously), looking to inflate their commission with little regard to existing contracts.

That is why player salaries must be made public. Player managers have too much power.

There, in it’s simplest form, is the one significant reason why the Crows should be drafting more South Australian players.

Only 25 percent of the Crows playing list are from South Australia, including a couple that have now returned from interstate teams.

Had he been here would Nicks have insisted that Adelaide use last year’s number six draft pick on a South Australian player? The test of that theory will come in two years time when the raw talent of Fisher McCasey is further developed and he is being tempted by Victorian teams.

At last week’s post-game press conference, Nicks looked a forlorn lonely figure as he tried to explain the capitulation of his team.

That nucleus of a good team is there but why aren’t the good players playing well; why aren’t the leaders and senior players setting an example and demanding higher standards? Where was the senior assistant to take some of the heat?

The tide surely must turn because the Crows are nowhere as bad as they have shown in the first three rounds of the season.

However, to restore the team to its former glory will take time.

It also requires patience, which footy fans and club boards are notoriously short of. However, even great teams and strong clubs have their tough years.

The Crows will need to support Nicks through these tough times - just as Collingwood has persevered with Nathan Buckley, Hawthorn did with Alastair Clarkson, Richmond did with Damien Hardwick, Port with Ken Hinkley and Geelong did with Mark Thompson.

All of them could have been sacked if impatient fans had their way. In the short term, however, several things must happen.

One, Nicksy needs a strong, experienced old campaigner on his coaching team; two, the Crows list management needs to seriously reassess its recruiting strategies; and three, the Crows need to get back home to Adelaide Oval.

Most importantly, however, the current Crows players need to show some heart and play to their true potential.

They’re not helping their new coach.