Key questions on the Crows’ form slump should not be confused with Adelaide’s business plans

EXPANDING the business base with a national baseball team should not become a false pointer in the questions on why the Crows are struggling on AFL fields.

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WHEN Port Adelaide goes through rough patches on the AFL fields, there is that suggestion the focus should be on football and not on China.

Although the cynics never explain how chief operating officer Stephen Dawes — as good as his views on football might be — can help Power coach Ken Hinkley by crunching the latest statistical numbers from Champion Data rather than working another deal in Shanghai.

Or how sponsorship boss Richard Kelly — even with the experiences from his 81 SANFL games at Norwood — makes a difference to the football program by putting aside travel agent Phil Hoffman’s travel portfolio to look at key forward Charlie Dixon’s heat maps.

Adelaide’s on-field woes will increase the questions of where the Adelaide Football Club’s administration — led by chief executive Andrew Fagan, left, and chairman Rob Chapman — have had their focus. Picture: Kelly Barnes

So now it is Adelaide’s turn to deal with the question of its “focus on football” as the 10th-ranked Crows fail to deliver to on-field expectations.

Those who will take issue with the sideshows — eSports and now ABL baseball with the Adelaide Bite — need to answer how chief operating officer Nigel Smart, commercial chief Daniel Johnston and fellow front office chief Paul Bauer make a difference to the Crows’ on-field fortunes by taking their focus away from the off-field challenges?

Adelaide’s current on-field dilemma — a 6-6 record that demands seven wins from the remaining 10 home-and-away games — is not created by the “suits” working the critical off-field agenda of growing the club’s revenue base, profile and business plan. Nor was the Power’s rough patch in 2016 — when Port Adelaide missed the AFL top-eight finals for a second consecutive season — created by its administration building an international agenda.

So the growing questions on why the Crows’ on-field program has shifted from AFL pacesetter last season to deliver poor results this year should — as the cynics would demand of the Adelaide front office — stay focused on football.

Luke Brown limps off the field on crutches after the Crows’ loss to Fremantle on Sunday. Picture: Will Russell/AFL Media/Getty Images

The Crows have had significant injuries to undermine their campaign this season. Bad luck explains the injury list recently claiming All-Australian defender Rory Laird (broken hand), fellow back man Luke Brown (left ankle) and forward Tom Lynch (ribs). There was no meeting of the front-office suits at West Lakes that could have been cancelled to save bone-crunching moments that put three valuable Crows in the medical rooms.

And the question of where “bad management” — say with a pre-season program that is now publicly judged by board member Mark Ricciuto to have involved mistakes — crippled the Crows this season will not be answered by the bean counters at West Lakes who went through the Bite’s budgets.

There are critical questions to be posed on Adelaide’s football program, but these should not be confused with misunderstanding the front office’s role to run the business.

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