Don Pyke must rediscover Midas touch and make tough calls to get Adelaide back to finals summit
ADELAIDE coach Don Pyke must rediscover his Midas touch and make tough calls to get the Crows back to the finals summit after the side’s disappointing 2018 campaign.
- Run home: Port’s dream hinges on power of positivity
- Another shattered finals dream to spur on Smith
- Snapshot of inconsistent season: Pyke
- Analysis: Same old story as Adelaide fades away
- Crows go down swinging
ADELAIDE boss Don Pyke is a rolled gold winner in life, placing him in foreign territory this season and under pressure to find solutions for a 2019 September riposte.
You don’t become a self-made mining genius, dual premiership player and successful West Coast board member by accident.
Adelaide will miss finals for the first time since 2014 after reaching last season’s grand final. The hard decisions Pyke once made in business will be replicated this summer at West Lakes — starting with leaders, assistant coaches, recruiting and motivation of a group that fell away this campaign.
“We came into the season with high expectations and hopes and not to be participating in September is a real kick in the guts for us,” Pyke conceded. “That is the reality for us, disappointing for our fans and members.
“The reality is you finish where you finish in this competition for a variety of reasons and we haven’t been good enough for long enough this season and we know get an opportunity to go away and say, ‘OK let us do something about it’.”
Adelaide’s fitness program will come under review after the hamstring scourge that reached double digits. There will be a total overhaul of the pre-season camp that corresponded with Eddie Betts’ output reducing to 25 goals.
The difference between GWS and the Crows on Saturday night in Canberra was that Leon Cameron’s men found ways to win despite a debilitating of run injuries.
Phil Walsh chose the right leader in 2015 but Taylor Walker (14 goals) needs an early visit to medicos and a full pre-season to prove he can still command Adelaide with impact in 2019.
Walker is arguably still the AFL’s best leader but hadn’t got near the ball before concussing Josh Kelly with a sling tackle in Canberra.
Pyke must conjure improvement in a list that has a nucleus of stars closing on 30. Jack Lukosius or Izak Rankine won’t provide a quick fix and obtaining them could mean parting with Mitch McGovern.
“We will work in the off-season to get ourselves back. We still have magnificent belief in our group, a quality group of young men and good players but we just haven’t been able to get that synergy, connection we had last year so we walk away disappointed,” Pyke said.
Watch every match of every round of the 2018 Toyota AFL Premiership Season.
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