Aboriginal Crows player took leave from the club to seek cultural support after mind training camp

SOME of Adelaide’s Aboriginal players were offended by the use of an artefact and indigenous references during the club’s pre-season psychology camp. Chief Sports Writer Reece Homfray reveals new details of the Collective Mind camp that some believe is behind Adelaide’s dramatic collapse in form.

• UPDATE: Crows dump controversial mind training company

SOME of Adelaide’s Aboriginal players were offended by the use of an artefact referred to as a talking stick and references to rites of passage during the club’s pre-season mind training camp.

As the fallout from the camp continues, it has emerged that one Aboriginal player took personal leave from the club to return home seeking cultural support.

But both the club and player are adamant it was unrelated to the January camp on the Gold Coast.

The Advertiser has chosen not to name the player who has since returned to the club to continue his career. He spent a brief time at home with family about a month ago.

Adelaide chairman Rob Chapman last week acknowledged parts of the mind-training camp – which was run by consultancy group Collective Mind – had offended some indigenous players and had been removed from the program.

Adelaide appointed its first indigenous liaison officer on June 1 this year – former SANFL footballer Jeremy Johncock – whose position had been months in the planning.

Adelaide has faced a week of intense media and public scrutiny after it lost its fourth game in a row to fall to 11th on the ladder at the mid-season bye.

Adelaide Crows’ Aboriginal players Wayne Milera, Cam Ellis-Yolmen, Eddie Betts, Ben Davis and Curtly Hampton wearing the team’s 2018 Indigenous guernsey. Picture: Matt Turner

A Crows spokesman said last night the club was aware of the situation on the camp and reinforced that the health and wellbeing of players was always paramount.

The fallout from the camp will raise debate about whether there is enough understanding of Aboriginal culture at AFL clubs.

It is estimated about 10 per cent of the current AFL playing population identifies as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.

According to the AFL Players’ Association, as of February last year five clubs had a specialist indigenous welfare officer – Port Adelaide, Melbourne, West Coast, North Melbourne and Gold Coast – while Fremantle and Collingwood had an indigenous contact person but not a full-time liaison.

Aboriginal culture is one of the oldest in the world and there are significant sensitivities regarding spiritual beliefs. Chapman last week acknowledged mistakes had been made on the training camp and said there were no lingering issues.

“We acknowledge the terminology used did offend some of the Aboriginal players,” he said.

“It was taken as offensive to their culture and their heritage. That is bad. And it has been rescinded from the program.

“And there are other changes and tweaks that have been made to the program. To the best of my knowledge there is no lingering issue – and Eddie Betts made that clear in his (regular) radio interview. Even Eddie is not sure why this comes up again and again.”

It was reported that star forward Betts was left traumatised by the camp but he told radio FIVEaa that he got a lot out of it.

Betts is currently sidelined with his second hamstring injury of the season.

“I love the footy club. Ever since I moved across here the footy club and the town itself has treated me really, really well. I can’t see myself going anywhere else. I’ll finish my career at the Crows,” Betts said on FIVEaa.

“People get a lot out of Collective Mind and some people don’t. I got a fair bit out of it. I’m happy at the footy club.

“At times when I was going into the footy club it had nothing to do with the camp, it was more so my body.

“I felt ‘why am I playing, why am I putting myself through this – because my body feels like it’s not holding up’.”

 

Performers at the AFL Indigenous Round, June 6 2018. Picture: Sarah Reed

Crows’ woes with bodies, mind and spirit

Reece Homfray

ADELAIDE’S arrival on the Gold Coast on January 29 for the club’s first training camp in seven years was met with an unusual silence on social media.

Players who usually post anything from pictures of their breakfast to amusing videos of unsuspecting teammates asleep on the plane had seemingly gone off the grid.

It came as no surprise to the players who had been told well in advance of the “intense” training camp that they would be asked to hand over their phones for three days so they could focus on the reason they were there.

Players were not cut-off from the outside world with a club phone available to them and their families if they needed to call, but the prolonged public silence was the first sign to everyone else that something about this camp was different.

There were two aspects to the pre-season camp, the physical training and the mind training which was run by Collective Mind, the mind-training consultancy group responsible for the Crows’ infamous anthem stance during last year’s finals series.

The trigger for the camp was the team’s sudden and dramatic meltdown in the grand final when they went in as red-hot favourites, didn’t handle the occasion and lost to Richmond by 48 points.

But the team was no stranger to Collective Mind. The club began talking with the group in late 2016 and it worked with players all through 2017 with regular trips to Adelaide.

This is in addition to the club’s on-going work with leadership consultancy business Leading Teams which remains involved.

Before the training camp Adelaide sent Heath Younie who heads its coach and player development to the Gold Coast on a reconnaissance mission and the program was tailored by the club’s staff according to the team’s needs.

But retired Western Bulldogs captain Robert Murphy who is seen as a respected voice of reason in the media fears the club may have misread the situation and underestimated the impact losing the grand final may have had on the playing group.

“If it’s only a flag that will make you feel good at the end, that’s a long time, and with the camp situation and the injuries and way they’re playing, I think their spirit is broken,” Murphy said.

“That grand final was such an emotional ordeal and the camp being under the guise of vulnerability, that’s not my idea of vulnerability ... vulnerability should be people having their chin out and chest open to be brought in together, made to feel safe, together and good about things, it doesn’t seem like that, it seems like they had their hearts ripped out.”

But that’s in hindsight now. When Adelaide beat reigning premier Richmond by 36 points in Round 2 then rallied against the odds to beat Sydney at the SCG by 10 points in Round 5 the camp questions seemed irrelevant and the team as close and as engaged as ever.

Brodie Smith, Rory Laird, Rory Atkins, Jordan Gallucci and more recently Darcy Fogarty have all re-signed in the early part of the year after coach Don Pyke was given a contract extension in January in a show of unity.

Yet in the wake of news of unrest in the team about the mind training camp, captain Taylor Walker’s text message to teammates was leaked to the media in what must have been a devastating betrayal of trust.

Some Adelaide players have raved about working with Collective Mind saying they got lots out of the program and the camp and will continue to use the tools in the mental space.

Others have been completely turned off by the experience including some of the indigenous players who found elements of it culturally insensitive.

Last week Adelaide chairman Rob Chapman conceded mistakes were made on the camp in this space.

“We acknowledge the terminology used did offend some of the Aboriginal players,” Chapman said. “It was taken as offensive to their culture and their heritage.

“That is bad. And it has been rescinded from the program.

“And there are other changes and tweaks that have been made to the program.

“To the best of my knowledge, there is no lingering issue - and Eddie Betts made that clear in his radio interview yesterday. Even Eddie is not sure why this comes up again and again.”

Crows players look dejected after a loss to the Hawks. Picture: Adam Trafford/AFL Media/Getty Images

The club will not abandon its work with Collective Mind and players have the choice to continue the mind training as they do with anything in the ‘mindfulness’ space such as mediation and relaxation sessions and use of audio tapes.

The Advertiser has been told there are players at other clubs who decline to take part in mind training or work in the mental space when it comes to football.

The problem for Adelaide this year is the demoralising grand final loss and controversial mind training camp has coincided with the worst injury run in the club’s history which has robbed the team of its best players and made it impossible to have a settled side.

Rory Sloane, Taylor Walker, Brad Crouch, Mitch McGovern, Eddie Betts, Rory Laird, Tom Lynch, Matt Crouch, Kyle Hartigan and Riley Knight have all missed multiple games because of injury. And that’s on top of Brodie Smith who did his knee in last year’s qualifying final and the departure of emerging stars Jake Lever and Charlie Cameron in the off-season.

Some fans will think it’s a miracle the team is 6-7 at the mid-season bye but others cannot forgive fitness staff for what they perceive as preventable soft-tissue injuries or the club’s hierarchy for approving the pre-season camp.

The club’s board has demanded answers or at the very least an explanation of what has gone wrong and head of football Brett Burton and senior coach Don Pyke have attended every board meeting this season. High performance manager Matt Hass has also presented to the board in response to the injury crisis.

Then there is the elephant in the room at Adelaide of player retention. As Port Adelaide trumpets Ollie Wines’ decision to put a flag in the ground and stay at Alberton on less money than what was offered to him back home in Victoria, the Crows await the signature of key players Tom Lynch and Rory Sloane. And now there is speculation McGovern will request a trade at year’s end - although that has been strongly denied by his manager.

Lever and Cameron’s exits after the grand final last year weren’t exactly smooth and Lever was reportedly told not to attend the club’s best-and-fairest night after walking out to accept big money on offer at Melbourne.

Some sections of the fan-base welcomed the ‘with us or against us’ mantra adopted by their team but they were also the same fans who were about to welcome Bryce Gibbs who walked out on a contract with Carlton to come home to Adelaide. Gibbs has had a strong first half of the season at Adelaide while Laird and Richard Douglas could well be leading the best-and-fairest half-way through the year.

For all the off-field distractions, some players have improved like Paul Seedsman who is in line for a new contract and Tom Doedee who has emerged as a classy and reliable defender with a 10-year career ahead of him.

But at 6-7 and facing three of the top five teams in the competition coming up, finals look increasingly unlikely.

As Murphy and retired St Kilda skipper Nick Riewoldt noted this week, when a premiership is the only form of redemption the realisation that it’s not going to happen can break a team and for the Crows that realisation may have arrived as early as June.

“I don’t think you realise in the moment when the spirit is broken,” Riewoldt said.

“I think you can lose belief in the direction that you’re trying to head, and Adelaide... I think a lot of them would have lost belief in achieving, it’s all in the soup the combination of everything, and when you add it all up... it results in losing belief.”

The Crows returned to training yesterday and have a week to prepare for their next game against West Coast at Adelaide Oval on June 30.

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Anatomy of an AFL collapse

■ September, 2017: Adelaide loses the grand final by 48 points to Richmond at the MCG.

■October, 2017: Jake Lever and Charlie Cameron request trades to Melbourne and Brisbane respectively while Bryce Gibbs joins the Crows from Carlton.

■November, 2017: The club selects SA product Darcy Fogarty with its first pick in the national draft with No.12.

■December, 2017: Full back Daniel Talia, below, reveals players did not return to pre-season training in acceptable physical condition.

■January, 2018: Don Pyke signs a three-year contract extension as coach and Rory Atkins and Jordan Gallucci re-sign until 2020.

■January, 2018: Adelaide embarks on a pre-season mind training camp on the Gold Coast.

■February, 2018: All-Australian defender Brodie Smith re-signs until 2021.

■March, 2018: News of unrest among the team in relation to the training camp breaks and captain Taylor Walker’s text message to players is leaked to the media. All-Australian defender Rory Laird re-signs until 2021.

■April, 2018 : Rory Sloane succumbs to a foot injury which has kept him out of football since Round 4.

■May, 2018: Captain Taylor Walker takes an enforced break to condition his body to play consistent football.

■June, 2018: Adelaide concedes the season of Brad Crouch, right, is over after groin surgery. Darcy Fogarty re-signs until 2021. Reports that Mitch McGovern will seek a trade at year’s end are denied by his manager.

■June, 2018: The club concedes it made mistakes on the pre-season mind training camp that offended some Aboriginal players.

■June, 2018: Adelaide loses four games in a row for the first time since 2011.