Crows Josh Jenkins’ admission about the 2017 grand final was a refreshing insight from the forward
CROWS Josh Jenkins refreshingly honest insight into his thoughts after losing the 2017 highlights the week’s ‘Reality Bites’ column which reveals a quick insight into what’s cooking in sport.
- Sign-up for Rucci’s Roast newsletter
- Tough decisions for SANFL
- Power’s heartfelt pitch
- Winners and loser: picture gallery
CROWS forward JOSH JENKINS certainly is making his grandmother proud - no fibs, no spin and no denial. His remarks on Fox Footy’s AFL360 and on Melbourne radio station SEN last week as he reflected on the 2017 AFL grand final - in which Jenkins did not score a goal against Richmond - and his observations of how the Adelaide Football Club dealt with defeat to the Tigers were upfront.
Jenkins’ assessments - particularly those on how the Crows went about Season 2018 - do leave some doubt on Adelaide football boss BRETT BURTON’S assessment in that awkward press conference at West Lakes on June 28 that there is “no lingering issue” in a clubhouse dealing with following up a grand final failure with a 12th ranking this season.
Adelaide will be a fascinating club to watch in next year’s AFL season. On the talent assembled at West Lakes, the Crows should - with Essendon - be the best contenders from the bottom 10 to rise to September’s top-eight finals.
But then many fine judges thought the Crows were a top-four group this year ...
Even Jenkins noted that Adelaide should have been better - not worse - for the learning experiences in the 2017 grand final.
“My greatest lesson is for next time - if there is a next time,” Jenkins said on AFL360, “(is) don’t get caught up in, ‘Jeez, I hope I play well, I hope we get to hold up that cup’. Just continue to do the things you did for the 24 weeks building into it.
“You can’t get that experience unless you go through it.”
West Coast needed three years to cash in on the experiences of losing the 2015 AFL grand final to Hawthorn. And dare we say it .... the Eagles did not need a “mind camp” on the Gold Coast to achieve success. Rather, West Coast stayed true to the traditional ways of assembling great sporting teams.
GRAND RETURN
ROBERT WALLS is returning to Carlton. The Blues premiership forward and coach will - while taking no coin - be back at Princes Park as a “mentor” to senior coach Brendon Bolton and his coaching staff.
This will put off Walls’ long-stated plan to spend a full year in the south of France again, but it will give Bolton the wise counsel he has lacked since former Crows coach NEIL CRAIG moved from Australian football to England’s rugby union team.
WARMING UP
SPECULATION on the future of Crows chief executive ANDREW FAGAN is rising, particularly with Cricket Australia expected to announce on Wednesday the successor to chief executive JAMES SUTHERLAND.
The hot tip to take charge of Australia’s cricket administration is current CA chief operating officer KEVIN ROBERTS. And then with a vacancy in the operations field comes the prospect of Fagan moving from an AFL club to cricket headquarters after just four years at the Adelaide Football Club.
BROKEN RECORD
IS there any chance someone can add a verse or two to go with the West Coast club song that currently has the line “We’re flying high” 11 times?
WHY, WHY, WHY?
THIS never makes sense.
As Richmond tumbled out of the premiership race - with a preliminary final defeat from Collingwood - Tigers premiership coach Damien Hardwick said of Dustin Martin when asked if his Brownlow Medallist should have played: “If it’s regular season (game) probably not.
“This is a cut-throat preliminary final so he was never a chance to miss. Dustin would have killed me if we said he wasn’t playing this week. He was always playing.”
Very strange. It happens again and again. Players are considered unfit for battle in a stock-standard home-and-away match, but in the same condition they are put on the field for a high-stake final.
As Hall of Fame Legend Malcolm Blight would say, “If you can train for the main training session, you are not playing.”
BRUTUS THEME
ONE AFL club chief executive - who has become famous for his cheap shot behind people’s backs - last week in Melbourne was confronted by another big player in the AFL game with the thought: “Why not have a crack to my face?”
Naturally, denials were quickly followed by silence.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“I KNOW that Graham Cornes and Malcolm Blight and a few blokes in Adelaide have said (Mitch McGovern is) absolutely leaving for money. If he was going to leave for money, he would’ve got an extra million dollars to go to Fremantle last year so that’s just rubbish.
“He’s on a very good contract at the Crows, it’s extremely good, so it’s definitely not about the money. His contract from Carlton will be much similar to the one he’s on at Adelaide, it’s more about the post code where he wants to live.”
CONTRACTED Crows forward MITCH McGOVERN’S manager COLIN YOUNG
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
WHY has Australian football become referred to as an “industry” rather than a “game”?
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
“(RICHMOND defender) Alex Rance got no (Brownlow Medal) votes. As an industry, we cannot put up with that (treatment of defenders). The AFL needs to look at educating umpires or we need to take (voting for the Brownlow) off them.”
Port Adelaide premiership midfielder KANE CORNES.
michelangelo.rucci@news.com.au
Rucci: Time for clubs to put old rivalries aside
Australian football faces dramatic changes to overcome the damage presented by the COVID19 crisis. It can only survive with unprecedented unity.
There should be no asterisk against 2020 premiership
The team that wins this year’s AFL premiership should be lauded for adapting in the most trying of circumstances. There must be no doubts over the legitimacy of the season, writes Michelangelo Rucci.