Adelaide Crows assistant Ben Hart says Josh Jenkins ‘didn’t have a run in’ with coach Don Pyke, ‘just a conversation’ after he was dropped again last week
Adelaide assistant Ben Hart says Josh Jenkins ‘didn’t have a run- in’ with coach Don Pyke, ‘just a conversation’ after he was dropped again last week. And the key forward has come out on Twitter to clear his name.
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Adelaide and Josh Jenkins have dismissed speculation of a rift with the out-of-favour key forward, with the club expressing confidence that he has not played his last AFL game for the club.
But the highly-paid veteran’s promotion back to the big league has come with a catch — that he becomes more than just a goalkicker.
Denying rumours of a heated fallout between Jenkins and senior coach Don Pyke which was said to have last week resulted in the 30-year-old being dumped to the SANFL for the second time this season, Crows assistant coach Ben Hart said he “doesn't think we’ve seen the last of Josh’’ at AFL level.
“He didn’t have a run-in (with Pyke),” Hart said on Monday.
“He had a conversation about not playing on the weekend.
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“But he’s contracted for two more years and I’m assuming that he’s going to be around, so hopefully he will be.
“Wherever he plays this week, whether it’s AFL or SANFL, he’ll go and do the things we’re asking him to and do them to the best of his ability.’’
Jenkins took to Twitter on Monday night to play down the supposed blow-up with the coach, which surfaced on Reddit’s online Crows forum last week, saying “Shame I have to respond but no boxing this week, just trying harder to get a kick. Go Crows!”
Jenkins’ management group also said “there is nothing in the rumour’’.
But Jenkins’ inability to command a regular AFL spot this season in just the third year of a five-year contract worth about $3 million could see him put on the trade block at the end of the year.
Former Western Bulldogs and Richmond coach Terry Wallace said that being dropped so close to the finals would prompt Jenkins to look elsewhere after 147 games and 296 goals in eight years for the Crows.
“He missed over a month of footy earlier in the season and now it’s happened again,’’ Wallace told SEN, naming the Bulldogs and Collingwood as potential suitors.
“Him and his management will be looking around. Adelaide would be well aware, dropping him four weeks before finals was going to have that impact.”
Forwards coach Hart did not rule Jenkins, who was first dropped to the SANFL after round four and did not return to the AFL side until round 11 against Melbourne, out of playing against premier West Coast in Perth on Sunday.
But that is unlikely, given the eighth-placed Crows beat St Kilda last Saturday and that Jenkins’ replacement, 2017 first-round draft pick Darcy Fogarty, had a solid game and the fact that Jenkins didn’t get the chance to make a selection statement because Adelaide had the SANFL bye.
Hart said the club’s coaches want him to play more of an “all-round’’ game.
“That will be a decision for match committee but wherever he plays it’s an all-round game that we are after from him,’’ Hart said.
“His ability to compete ahead of the footy, to hit the scoreboard, which he’s done okay, to chime in on team defence and the contest work, that won’t change no matter what level he plays, so hopefully he can do that.’’
Hart said Jenkins’ attitude had stayed strong, despite his obvious disappointment at having two spells in the SANFL — the last which came just a week after he had recorded consecutive four-goal hauls against Gold Coast and Essendon.
Jenkins last week said he wanted to see out his contact at Adelaide but that he was “very aware of the landscape and who’s expendable’’.
The Crows, meanwhile, expect to regain key defender Alex Keath, who has missed two matches with a sore ankle, for the Eagles clash.
“He should be right to go,” Hart said.