Former Adelaide assistant coach Scott Camporeale responds to Crows camp report and says he would love the club to set the record straight
Former Adelaide senior assistant coach Scott Camporeale has hit back at a report on the Crows’ infamous pre-season camp and says he would love to speak freely but is not allowed to. It comes as Tyson Edwards backs his under-fire former club.
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Adelaide’s former senior assistant coach Scott Camporeale says he would love to speak freely about the club’s infamous 2018 pre-season camp but he is furious that a report last week wrongly said he ignored calls.
Speaking on ABC Grandstand in Adelaide on Saturday, Camporeale said the Crows had gagged him and others from speaking about what happened on their Gold Coast camp after the 2017 grand final.
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But he says a report in The Age wrongly claimed he had been contacted for comment and did not respond.
“For me it’s water under the bridge, I can’t say too much because the club has said we’re not allowed to, it’s up to the club,” he said.
“Personally we’d love to come out and say everything just to get clear air so there is no innuendo and be really clear around what happened.
“What I will say is the intention (of the camp) was there, the execution probably wasn’t.
“That’s where I sit on it, but Sam McClure I didn’t get one phone call from him, if he rang and left a message I would have returned the phone call.
“Would I have said anything? Probably not, but he’s just written my name in the article and I didn’t even get a phone call from him or at least if I didn’t answer the phone a voice message saying who it was, give me a call back if you want to make comment on it.
“Those sort of things irritate me as an ex-person out of football, people can write what they write, it’s an opinion piece, we understand that, but if you’re going to put people’s names down and say ‘they didn’t respond’, I take exception to that.
“I can see the fascination in it (camp) because it has been a talking point for the last couple of years, and at the end of the year when Don, Brett and I were essentially moved on I can see why people keep talking about it, that’s why everyone would love to have clarity and be clear on it, but unfortunately that’s up to the club.”
The report claimed the camp subjected the players to psychological abuse and several players are still deeply troubled by what happened.
Camporeale said in his first pre-season training camp at Carlton he was sleeping in a tin shed, woken at 4am by banging saucepans and forced to strip naked and swim in a lake at Ballarat.
“I was at Carlton, I got drafted in November and wasn’t moving over until January because I was doing an electrician’s apprenticeship so couldn’t leave any earlier,” he said.
“They flew me over for a camp at Ballarat, I was an 18-year-old kid just played senior footy at the SANFL 68kg wringing wet, go over and get picked up from the airport, we drive to this essentially iron shed with bunks.
“I’d never been on a pre-season footy camp before ... rock up to this thing and there was an army guy there who was an absolute nut case.
“We got put into dormitories, woken up at 4am banging on saucepans, we had to run down, strip off nude, swim around a buoy, that was my first encounter with Kouta (Anthony Koutoufides).
“He turns up, I’m 68kg, he’s built like the Greek Adonis but he couldn’t swim, so there I am as an 18-year-old kid dragging Anthony Koutoufides around a buoy in this pond freezing cold in Ballarat.
“Then we get to the afternoon and there were boxing gloves on the ground, thank god I had Fraser Brown in my team and he said ‘listen mate, just come and stand behind me’, so I was sitting there and that was full on.
“For an 18-year-old kid that was full on, mum and dad picked me up from the airport and said ‘how’d you go mate?’ and I said ‘I don’t think I’ll be going back after that’.”
Camporeale was a victim of Adelaide’s external review last year and was sacked along with football manager Brett Burton which followed the departure of senior coach Don Pyke.
The Crows were 0-5 after five rounds and Camporeale has put the heat on the club’s senior players, saying they need to stand up to support its new wave of young talent.
“I think there’s some talent there, no doubt, this is an industry wide issue not just Adelaide, but when you’re trying to blood young players, you need your best and most experienced players to support them.
“When I first played at Carlton I walked into a side where I was buffeted by Williams, Bradley, Kernahan, McKay, Hanna.
“That’s how you learn your craft, you’re not reliant on being the best player every week.
“It generally takes 40-50 games for these guys to go ‘I can handle the pressure, I know what the expectation is and what I need to keep working on’.
“It’s very difficult when they come in and out and that’s the balance at match committee at Adelaide at the moment - how long do you keep these young guys in but we still have to try to win games of footy.
“The mental aspect of losing all the time, what does that do to the rest of the group?
“Fogarty is a first-round pick he’ll be a good player but needs to develop his fitness and repeat efforts and tackles inside forward 50.
“Chayce Jones will be a good AFL midfielder but at the moment we’re asking him to go against some of the best midfielders in the competition with at the moment, not a lot of support going through there.”
During the week, former midfielder Tyson Edwards said he had no doubt there were positives emerging from behind closed doors at West Lakes and he had no issues walking back into the club as an ex-player.
“I think in these sort of times when you’re getting hammered on and off the field, there is a fair bit of good stuff going on behind the scenes that just hasn’t come to light yet,” Edwards told SEN.
“Generally clubs in this situation have got things in place and are working through it and will come out of it, but at the moment it’s been frustrating for Matthew Nicks and I do feel for him because I really do believe he is the man, he just needs a bit of time and help around him and he will get that eventually.
“When things aren’t going well you’re concentrating on the little things, and I know Matthew Nicks is huge on the little things, like training standards, culture is talked about a lot, and they would be doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes to get things right at their end and you just don’t see that straight away, those things take time.
“All clubs do it (engaging with ex-players) differently, I certainly have felt welcome to go back there, I’m not heavily involved in the past players ... but I have certainly felt comfortable to go back there, no problems about that.”
reece.homfray@news.com.au