Matthew Nicks exclusive interview: Crows coach on pre-season, pressure, players set to explode

In this exclusive chat, Crows coach Matthew Nicks told fans to get pumped about two luckless young guns that are flying under the radar this pre-season.

Adelaide Crows training at West Lakes. Matthew Nicks interview following training. 1 February 2023. Picture Dean Martin

The pressure is ramping up at Adelaide. And Matthew Nicks wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Crows haven’t made finals since 2017, an unprecedented run for the club.

Ever since the losing grand final and then finishing 12th in 2018, the question has been when will the Crows return to the top eight?

Even though Nicks only took charge at West Lakes at the end of 2019 – after the resignation of Don Pyke – there was no honeymoon period.

After the bottoming out that was 2020, and the club’s first ever wooden spoon, the Crows have improved in the past two seasons with finishes of 15th and 14th.

But is this able to satisfy a fan base who had become accustomed to September action?

Nicks has always been wary of putting a date on when he thinks the Crows will return to finals action.

“Finals is an outcome,” Nicks, when speaking to News Corp at West Lakes, says.

“We are working at the moment to make ourselves better consistently.

“We go out every week to go out and make our supporters and members proud, those people who come to the game.

“If we are able to leave the ground and feel proud of what we have left out there more than often the result takes care of itself.

“There have been games over the last couple of years where I have no doubt that people would have felt proud about what they saw.

“And I’m confident with the work that we are doing that we will get the outcomes and the results that we are looking for.”

Nicks speaking at West Lakes. Picture: Dean Martin

The Crows have not played a finals game since the 2017 Grand Final. Picture: Dean Martin

On top of the wooden spoon in 2020, Nicks has another unwanted first among Crows coaches.

He is the first coach to keep his job after two seasons without finals football.

“I’m always aware of records that we are breaking, I think I had a record of 0-13 at one point,” he said.

“Always aware of that, that’s where pressure comes from and as I said that’s why I love what I do.

“I love the group that I am working with, this is a fantastic footy club and a club that expects to win games of footy.

“We want to get back to that as soon as possible and come out of the plus side of 500 as they say.

“That is a goal of every side to win more games than you lose and there is nobody who wants to do that more than me.”

Outside of that unwanted record, only four coaches in the AFL era have gone four seasons without finals and continued in their role.

Crows chief executive Tim Silvers recently said on radio that he wasn’t sure if Nicks was feeling any of the pressure that might be coming his or the club’s way ahead of the 2023 season.

So is the pressure increasing on Nicks and the Crows?

“Well that is why we are in the industry,” Nicks said.

“If you don’t enjoy pressure then you are probably in the wrong industry.

“Elite sport, especially the top level in the AFL there is pressure all the time and we (SA) are one of the best states in the country for that because we are passionate and we want to win, especially here at the Adelaide Footy Club.

“But I love that pressure, I embrace that and if it wasn’t there then I’m not entirely sure that I would want to be in the industry.

“I probably feel worse when the pressure comes off. Like I’m searching for it.

“I guess when you feel like there is light at the end of the tunnel there might actually be a train coming.

“So I actually enjoy, I embrace it and I really like that feeling of we must perform and we must continue to get better.”

Crows fans will be expecting at the very least that their side improves on the eight wins they managed in 2022.

But expectations haven’t sat well with the Crows at times over the past two seasons.

More often than not when the Crows have been favourites going into a match they have either lost or put in one of their worst performances for some time.

On the other hand, some of the most memorable victories under Nicks so far, the 2021 wins over Geelong and Melbourne and the 2022 wins over Port Adelaide, Richmond and the Western Bulldogs have come when the Crows are not expected to triumph.

Nicks says the challenge for the Crows will be to embrace the expectations. Picture Dean Martin

Changing this around has been a key focus for Nicks and his coaching staff this pre-season.

“Sometimes that is a bit of expectation. As a young side do you prefer that freedom and less pressure so you can come from behind and have that upset win?” Nicks said.

“That is something we have worked a lot on this pre-season.

“We’ve put ourselves in a number of different scenarios where we’ve put ourselves in front and it is an example of being able to deal with pressure and holding on.

“Or as you said going into a game as favourites, how do you live up to that favouritism. “There is an expectation as you grow as an individual and as a team that you learn how to live with that expectation.”

Another pre-season under renowned high performance guru Darren Burgess has Nicks optimistic his side can learn from last season.

“What we will learn from last year is everything that we are working on, some of the moments we didn’t get right last year cost us results. We’ve done a lot of work in that space,” he said.

“We know how close the competition is, sometimes you can feel like you are a long way away but we know how close we are.”

As does the form of two players in particular on the training track.

Wayne Milera and Izak Rankine. Picture: Tom Huntley

“Wayne Milera has been a standout,” he said.

“Junior as we call him since I have arrived at the footy club it has been so hard for him to get his body right, very unlucky with injury.

“But he has done a hell of a lot right to get his body right and round out his physical presence and he has a game that is next level.

“So he has been a standout at this point, we still have a little way to go, but we are really pleased to one see him out there but two to see him at the level he is.”

He said Crows fans should be excited about a forgotten duo.

“The Crows family haven’t really seen a lot of him yet but Luke Pedlar is one that I hope will entertain a lot of people with the level of footy he has in him,” Nicks said.

“Similar to Wayne Milera, who just hasn’t really gotten any luck with injury, probably a bit around the base he has been able to build from a fitness point of few and the balance of his body.

“He is such a power athlete, extremely powerful and sometimes that is really hard to tame.

“But he finished off the year extremely well in the SANFL and he has trained the house down at this point.

“I’m a bit of touch wood for guys like that at this point because when different people ask how you are going to perform as a team a lot comes down to where your injuries are happening and what injuries you are getting.

“Some of them are contact injuries and are unavoidable but I’m confident that Luke Pedlar has now done the work with his body that he is strong enough to withstand game after game I just hope we get an opportunity to see that.”

Nicks is excited about what Luke Pedlar can do this season. Photo by Michael Klein

Nicks has a year to go on his contract, and key Crows figures have consistently said he is the man to bring success back to West Lakes.

The Western Bulldogs recently re-signed Luke Beveridge with a year still remaining on his contract.

Nicks said there had been no talks about him doing the same at the Crows right now.

“We are consistently in dialogue,” he said.

“When I saw we, myself and the club, consistently talk about where we are at and what are the expectations on me as a coach and the expectations on our football department and our coaching group.

“That dialogue never stops but in saying that at the moment our heads are well and truly in work mode.

“We are doing everything we can to get better so there aren’t any conversations around contracts.”