Fagan backs key Adelaide Crows, promises full review but no knee-jerk reactions in wake of disappointing season
ADELAIDE chief executive Andrew Fagan has promised Crows fans his club will review every detail of a disappointing season but won’t make knee-jerk reactions in the wake of missing finals.
- Brown out gives Otten a strong case for extension
- Match report: Eddie heroics help lift Crows to win
- Dees’ win all but flicks switch on Port’s finals hopes
- Live ladder: What the results mean for top eight
- Analysis: Long summer to cleanse Crows’ winter of discontent
ADELAIDE chief executive Andrew Fagan has promised Crows fans his club will review every detail of a disappointing season but won’t make knee-jerk reactions in the wake of missing finals.
All but guaranteeing head of football Brett Burton and high performance manager Matt Hass would not be made scapegoats for a season that was derailed by injury, Fagan said the club’s review would be widespread and thorough but had been under way all year.
He also said it had involved external parties to ensure the club was doing everything possible to keep pace with the competition.
“We don’t just stay internal and the thing about reviews is you don’t just do one at the end of the year, we review constantly, you’re actually reviewing things on a week-to-week basis,” Fagan said.
“We bring in external people to do that as well, we’ve had leading sport scientists in there this year reviewing some of our high performance and sport science departments, they were in there last year and the year before so it’s a regular part of doing business.
“We’re pretty sure we know what we did right and wrong throughout the course of the year and maybe some things that just worked against us, and people like to identify one individual but rarely is that actually the case.
“On top of the continuous reviews they’ve done throughout the course of the season they will take the opportunity come the end of the season to ensure everything is documented in the way it needs to be and we’ve got a really clear picture of what 2019 looks like from the off-season to pre-season to ensure guys launch 2019 in the best possible way.”
Fagan said the injury crisis had been a combination of mistakes and bad luck.
“I don’t think there’s been one thing in particular this year, there have been a bunch of little things that haven’t gone our way,” he said on Triple M radio on Sunday.
“We’ve had a bunch of injuries — collision based injuries — we just haven’t been able to put the same team on the park.
“But we’ve acknowledged there have been some misses on our part, and players have acknowledged some misses on their part as well, so it’s something that will form part of our learnings for the year and we’ll continue to push and strive to get better.”
Fagan also hit back at public criticism of Taylor Walker’s captaincy.
“I’m not sure where it comes from and it’s been ordinary on more than one occasion throughout the season.
“I heard an interview Sloaney was doing and he said it best in commenting how strong a leader Tex is and when you’re inside the four walls that’s what you see.
“It’s a decision we make every year, we’ll make it again in the early part of next year, but he’s a really important part of our leadership group and I think the criticism has been wildly unfair.”
Watch every match of every round of the 2018 Toyota AFL Premiership Season. SIGN UP NOW >