Crows coach Matthew Nicks reveals his mantra for this season, and the two players who have already caught his eye
Put team first - that is Matthew Nicks’ mantra heading into his first pre-season as Adelaide coach, and already the players are buying in. Here is the second of our two-part interview with the new Crows mentor.
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Matthew Nicks was only days into his new job as Adelaide coach when two players grabbed his attention because of what he stands for.
One was the captain. The other hasn’t even played a game yet.
What Nicks was looking for when he spoke to his new players or watched them go about their business was an attitude of what they can do for the team, not what Nicks or the club can do for them.
“I think they heard that before we had the chance to catch up,” he said this week.
“That’s what you hope, that if you bring a certain persona or characteristic - if we’re going to respect each other - then maybe I need to come to the party.
“I had Rory Sloane come in and sit with me, and we’ve spent more time together than most, obviously, and Sloaney’s first question to me was ‘what do you need from me?’
“I said ‘you be you, you’ve got what we need, we need to bring more along and encourage that in others’.
“His strength is about team.”
The next player who struck a chord with Nicks was teenager Ned McHenry on the second day of pre-season training.
“After two days of working with our young guys, there are players I’ve looked at straight away and gone ‘wow, you’re very important to this organisation and I haven’t seen your footy in detail yet’,” Nicks said.
“A Ned McHenry (type player) stands out straight away; for me, a good character is someone who enjoys what they do and brings others along with them.
“The word ‘I’ and ‘me’ is not there as much, they’re enjoying training, there is constant talk amongst the group.”
Adelaide’s entire squad will reunite for pre-season training on Monday, but Nicks has been speaking with his troops in varying degrees for weeks.
Within 24 hours of being appointed coach last month he was on the phone to them, arranging coffees or in one text message asking “can we catch up for a beer?”.
One player told The Advertiser his reaction was a very relieved “yes”.
Despite the off-field torment that has weighed on the playing group the past two years, Nicks didn’t feel as though he was inheriting a fragile group carrying emotional baggage and in need of some TLC.
“The mood was excited,” Nicks said.
“It’s amazing the language around footy circles like ‘oh, they had a poor year’... they were one game out of the finals last season.
“It was a poor second half results-wise, but I think the players are really enthusiastic about where it’s going.
“They don’t think they’re as far away as the outside might be saying. You’re never as bad or as good as everyone thinks.
“Part of my role is to keep the players excited and driven and perform as well as they can. “We’re stopping them from coming back early because you need them to continue that freshen up, but as of Monday they’ll be knocking the door down to get in, which is a great sign.”
Nicks’ mantra in his first pre-season at West Lakes includes words like “selfless” and “putting others first”.
Easy to say, not always easy to do, but Nicks says it means acknowledging, respecting and helping the team behind the team - like the 30-odd people who help run training every day.
“They bring drinks out, put cones out, get all the gear, get the ground ready, and when we talk about prioritising others we talk about helping these people because sometimes they’re volunteers - it’s not even a job,” he said.
“It’s stuff you can sometimes take for granted because it becomes the norm.”
The other side of that involves teammates on game day.
“Preferencing a teammate in a game is as small as picking a guy up off the bottom of a pack, prioritising shepherding before receiving a handball, or ‘the ball is coming our way, but I’m going to block to create space for a teammate’,” Nicks said.
“The best teams in the competition do it and it’s a habit.
“I’ve used Richmond as an example as most coaches would at the moment because they deserve the most respect.
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“They’ve found a sweet spot where they have 22 players every week playing for each other and I don’t know what they’re doing internally, but from an outsider it looks like their players and Trent Cotchin - who I have huge respect for - has been able to transform himself into the ultimate leader.”
Nicks could have gone for any of the four senior coaching jobs that came up before Adelaide this season, but he didn’t.
And despite the Crows being on the nose with the football world it was the only job he pursued.
New Senior Coach Matthew Nicks recorded this message for Crows Members earlier today #weflyasone pic.twitter.com/qrKHdyKN9K
— Adelaide Crows (@Adelaide_FC) October 15, 2019
The external review, the reports of the infamous ‘mind camp’, the senior players wanting out, none of it concerned him.
“I’m an Adelaide boy so I know staff within the walls, but where it locked in and I knew it was right was throughout the process,” he said.
“The first person I had any dealings with was (CEO) Andrew Fagan and we talked through exactly what’s going on with the club.
“Then I sat down with Phil Smyth, James Podsiadly and Mark Ricciuto and not only was I able to provide them with information about me, but they were providing information about where the club is at because it’s got to align.
“It is a big club, a powerful club and a successful club that has consistently performed and it was the second interview where I realised there is an external perception of what’s going on here and then there’s an internal reality.
“It was quite an eye opener and it was ‘this is right’.”
Despite being a first-year coach, Nicks will not have a senior assistant or a director of coaching to help oversee things in 2020.
Instead he will increase the responsibilities of his assistants - Ben Hart (311 AFL games and two-time premiership player), Marty Mattner (222 AFL games, premiership player, two-time SANFL premiership coach), Michael Godden (SANFL premiership coach) and Matthew Clarke (258 AFL games and AFLW premiership coach).
“As well as Heath Younie; all of them in their own right are outstanding coaches,” Nicks said.
“They’ve been outstanding, Michael and Marty have won a premiership in their own right, they are managing people, the SANFL is a really strong competition so they know what they’re doing.
“We had a look at the dynamic of the group and sitting down with those guys or over the phone as much as we could, I knew reasonably quickly that we had a group that was sitting there waiting for the opportunity and they’ve all stood up.”
In the past few weeks, Nicks has put as much focus on building relationships with his coaching staff as he has his players, and together they’re hitting the gym in the mornings.
“It’s not quite 5am yet, we’ve got families and at this time of year means dropping the kids at school, but there’s a bit of learning in that from my journey,” he said.
“We did a bit of stuff at the Giants in that space without giving too much away, and we’ll work more in that space going forward, but it’s about being comfortable being uncomfortable.
“If we can push ourselves a little more and sometimes what can happen in that coaching space is you get locked in that little room and trying to do whatever you can, but sometimes it’s not about shuffling magnets or talking tactics, it’s getting out on the floor and getting amongst it.”
Day one done! Here's some of the best moments from our first day back on the track 🎥 #weflyasone pic.twitter.com/oOC0tHtC0a
— Adelaide Crows (@Adelaide_FC) November 14, 2019
Nicks brings experience from GWS and Port Adelaide - where he was a senior assistant - to the Crows gig, but it’s the ‘Bloods culture’ from his playing days in Sydney that instilled the importance of team in him.
“I always talk to the players and say ‘you’ve chosen a sport that involves teammates, so embrace that’,” he said.
“I don’t remember anything individual about my career, it’s all about team; you run into old teammates and you look and just smile at each other and the respect is huge.
“That’s the stuff I look back on and if you ask me ‘why do you coach the way you coach, and why are you the person you are’ it’s all because of the team.”
Matthew Nicks on ...
First impressions of the playing group?
“Young, enthusiastic, chomping at the bit to get back out there, so I think we’ll have a lot of fun.”
Your 22 for Round One?
“Well, the only one who has apparently locked himself in is the Texan, who’s moved himself to the wing.
“Good luck to him, if he can do it, we’ll get him up there, it will be an interesting one.”
The ruck stocks?
“No concerns. I think Reilly (O’Brien) obviously stepped up and took his game to another level, so we are confident he also has the capacity to work through and play large minutes. “That doesn’t mean he walks straight into that spot because Billy Frampton comes across, who can ruck and is a lot bigger than what a lot of people believe, and Strachan is coming through as well.
“He’s a young up and coming, super character around the place and a real leader so some of these guys are going to be knocking on the door.”
Where to play Wayne Milera?
“We’d all love to see him in the midfield. A lot of players come into footy and that’s the engine room, I think he’s ready to get a look inside and what you get is a hybrid-style midfielder.
“He’s got inside and outside and the ability to break away, if we can get him in there at points he will complement the Crouch brothers.”
Ned McHenry?
“Ned is the energy. An exciting, ultimate team player so far in two sessions, so it’s been limited in what I’ve seen, but he has stood out as a super important player both on and off the field.
“He can run all day, he’s just got to strengthen the body up in a couple of other areas so he can do that week in, week out at AFL level.”
reece.homfray@news.com.au