Why Adelaide is set to appoint a fresh face as the head of its football department
Adelaide is looking for new hope with a new image for the Crows football department – and an old scar is denying a loyal club servant his much-due return to a top role, writes Michelangelo Rucci.
Michelangelo Rucci
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Experience counts, and for plenty in world football and America’s NFL football game. Not so much the AFL.
For all the lessons that come from experience – there is nothing like learning from the job rather than working a PowerPoint presentation to get a job – the AFL system still seems a fresh face with untried ideas.
So Michael Voss, who is far wiser today than in his novice days at Brisbane a decade ago, remains a senior assistant coach at Port Adelaide rather than a senior coach at an AFL club taking benefit from his hard-earned experiences.
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Ross Lyon is allowed to skip into the media circus, where his contentious “public persona” might change to make him fashionable for a third coaching role. Forget his experience that came once with the tag of being “tactically savvy”.
Jose Mourinho must be grateful he works in the world game rather than the AFL.
The Adelaide Football Club is the latest great example of savouring new hope from new faces against experience. New coach Matthew Nicks will insist the “inexperienced” tag on his football crew is overstated.
Nicks will be the third first-time coach – following Brenton Sanderson and the late Phil Walsh – at Adelaide in less than a decade. He has no senior assistant, a role he held at Port Adelaide and GWS. He cannot say it is a luxury at other clubs after working the job himself.
The problem is Adelaide would incur a “luxury tax” in appointing a senior assistant at West Lakes after recently clearing out its failed football program.
Of the assistants at West Lakes, there is a collection of grand experiences. Ben Hart is on his third stint as an AFL assistant since 2008 (Adelaide 2008-2011, Collingwood 2012-2016 and Adelaide again).
Martin Mattner is in his second year as an AFL assistant but has experienced as an SANFL premiership coach at Sturt. Michael Godden has the same script from Woodville-West Torrens.
And Matthew Clarke’s resume reads better each year, more so with AFLW premiership coach on his record.
But what is to happen with off-field leadership of Adelaide’s football office?
West Coast football chief Craig Vozzo is resisting Adelaide’s grand advances. But he will soon return home – and, most likely, to his old home at Port Adelaide to be Keith Thomas’ successor as chief executive.
Wayne Campbell says he will not follow Nicks from GWS.
Phil Harper thought he would be returned to the role – he was Crows football chief from 2010 replacing the retired John Reid – for at least 12 months while the wooing of Vozzo continues in 2020.
But now it seems Adelaide is waiting for SANFL football boss Adam Kelly to return from leave next week to hand him the big job – as a novice.
Harper’s “interim” role would end sooner than expected – and much sooner than he deserves. His experience, particularly in advancing Adelaide’s AFLW program to success, would seem paramount in supporting Nicks to rebuild trust with the Crows players.
And Harper merits this second chance after being railroaded – to an AFL-imposed two-month ban in 2013 – for the Kurt Tippett saga.
But the AFL system again is determined to prove experience – of which Harper has plenty from many roles in Australian football – is quickly dismissed in the Australian game.
Harper never needed to redeem his name after the Tippett saga that was not of his making. A return to managing Adelaide’s football department seemed timely in a game that lives to hand out “second chances”.