Don’t think we’ve seen the last of Dougy
Richard Douglas is not finished with AFL football yet. But the 2010 Crows club champion would love to turn back the clock to when the game was for the players rather than coaches.
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Delisted Crows club champion Richard Douglas is destined for the coach’s box — and he intends to stay true to his passion for the game as a player.
Douglas, 32, looms as one of the prime candidates to follow the Hawthorn pair of Luke Hodge (to Brisbane) and Sam Mitchell (to West Coast) to combine finishing an AFL playing career while starting a coaching resume.
But the 2010 Malcolm Blight Medallist wants to be a mentor who motivates players to enjoy the game rather than continue the current trend of AFL coaches who are strategists teaching players to mark space on a field.
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“The game as a whole has become quite congested,” says Douglas who admits to have enjoyed top-flight Australian football more at the start of his 246-game career in 2006 than at the end.
“It is overcoached at times — too structured,” adds Douglas of the paradox from the professional AFL era. It was supposed to bring training time for players to hone their skills; instead the time is spent off the training track and in meeting rooms workshopping tactics and strategy.
“We should just let the boys get out there and play more … but that’s the modern game (loaded with tactics from) coaches who want to win; they have no time for what the game looks like.
“At the back half of my career, the coaches are forgetting the fundamentals of football,” adds Douglas to answer all those fans who question why skill levels have no vastly improved with full-time training.
“Sometimes, coaches coach the wrong thing. The bottom line is to win.
“It is still a great contest. But the spectacle has dropped a bit.
“I want to get back to the basics — to coach the basic skills and the fundamentals (of the game).”
Douglas leaves the Adelaide Football Club — where he would have preferred to have closed his AFL career — 14 years after arriving as the No. 16 draft pick. He did not start in the Crows SANFL reserves team, but was mini-drafted to Glenelg.
While the Crows and Port Adelaide have preferred, since 2014, to keep all their players in the same system, Douglas reflects on his experiences in two contrasting football programs as a blessing.
“I got to experience what SANFL life was like — and I learned the history of Glenelg; soaked it up and loved it,” Douglas said on SEN1629. “Unfortunately, the kids coming through now don’t get that chance.
“I am absorbed the history of SA football,” added the Victorian-born Douglas. “It is an incredibly long and proud history — one that is not recognised enough in Victoria.”
Douglas is — with defender Andy Otten — one of the first Crows to clear his locker at West Lakes as the refit of the Crows’ squad begins. He also is sure to find the infamous 2018 pre-season Collective Mind camp on the Gold Coast will always draw questions.
Douglas describes the camp as a “unique experience” … “with some things on that camp that could have been done better … and (it is) probably best to leave in the past”.