Don Pyke says Adelaide won’t ‘repeat’ its failed mental focus strategy but backs Taylor Walker’s captaincy
DON Pyke says Adelaide won’t repeat its failed approach to mental preparation and high casualty list in 2019 — while giving his strongest endorsement of Taylor Walker’s captaincy.
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DON Pyke says Adelaide won’t repeat its failed approach to mental preparation and high casualty list in 2019 — while giving his strongest endorsement of Taylor Walker’s captaincy.
Pyke concedes Adelaide has “a big bucket” to examine including mental resilience, conditioning and strategy during a post-season inquest into a first September miss since Brenton Sanderson was sacked.
There will be blood, sweat but no tears on the track following a Gold Coast camp that offended the club’s indigenous contingent led by Eddie Betts.
“We may have a camp but it might be a different camp, it will probably be more a physical performance camp than, say, the one we did this year,” Pyke revealed.
AFL legend and The Advertiser columnist Warren Tredrea believes key defender Daniel Talia, 26, should skipper Adelaide if Walker ends a four-year reign as leader.
Spearhead Walker, 28, has failed to impact this season, managing 26 goals in 14 games while suspended twice. Walker needs a full pre-season following a season blighted by foot and groin injuries but Pyke is standing by his skipper.
“In fairness to Tex he has soldiered on really bravely under a lack of a pre-season. I don’t care who you are, if you don’t get that solid base under you the game is too difficult,” said Pyke of Walker who will watch the club’s remaining games against North Melbourne and Carlton after concussing GWS’s Josh Kelly in Canberra.
“I am full of admiration for what he has done for the team, the care he has showed to put himself out there continually and lead the way he has.
“In terms of the decision around all those sort of things, the leadership group, that will happen in the next pre-season.”
Pyke says the club won’t completely ditch its attempt at mastering the mental side of the game that went wrong at the January pre-season camp in collusion with Collective Minds.
“The approach we take might be different but it will certainly be a component of our program,” said Pyke.
“It will probably be the level of the focus. Minutes will be applied in terms of what gives biggest bang for your buck.”
Old fashioned hard-yakka and new tactics will be the focus at West Lakes this summer.
Adelaide was undermined by a debilitating injury list and lack of continuity this season. Pyke says a review starting in earnest before the club’s August 31 end of season dinner must find answers to a fall from grand finalist to 12th.
“In terms of the way game is now being played, the game evolves and changes so our style and system will probably be the first thing we will consider,” said Pyke.
“Do we need to make tweaks to how we’re training some of those components of our style of system? Do we need to make tweaks to our conditioning and strength program around that as well? It’s a big bucket that we look at.
“We have two weeks left. We will start to think what have we learnt this year, how we will structure our pre-season to give ourselves the very best chance next year to bounce back to playing the sort of footy consistently we haven’t been able to play this year.”
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