Head of football Brett Burton says Adelaide’s Gold Coast trip is rejuvenating the Crows for cut-throat final
THE surf’s up on the Gold Coast and so are the Crows as Don Pyke thinks outside the square to avoid the team becoming a victim of its own success.
THE surf’s up on the Gold Coast and so are the Crows as Don Pyke thinks outside the square to avoid the team becoming a victim of its own success.
The introduction of the AFL’s controversial bye round means premiership favourite Adelaide will have played just two games in a month come Friday week’s preliminary final against Sydney or Geelong.
“It certainly forces you to think outside the normal. It is foreign to us to have a week off then play and have another week off,” said Crows general manager of football, Brett Burton .
Adelaide, the solitary focus of a footy mad town with Port Adelaide’s elimination final exit, had no option but to “think outside the normal” said Burton.
A decision was made to ensure Taylor Walker’s men didn’t burnout mentally in the 15 days before the cutthroat final.
Geelong coach Brad Scott was left to rue his club’s approach to a losing preliminary final against Sydney last season after finishing the minor round in second spot.
“What we do know is in a high performance environment you just can’t keep the players up for a long period of time when they haven’t got a game every week,” Burton said. “You can only go to the well so often when you ask them to play at high intensity and standard.
“We get back and have eight days which normalises it, so they don’t feel like they have been training every day and play the game before they get there. We had 12 days before the semi-final against GWS and that seemed like an eternity too.”
The Crows enjoyed apartments with beach access, training at local ovals and Bond University from Sunday through to Tuesday. Burton said there was no danger of going into holiday mode at the business end of the season.
“We thought we would have a camp where we could keep the group together and focus on the right balance of rejuvenation and recovery,” he said.
“A bit of sunshine is always good physically and mentally as well.”
The entire Crows squad – bar injured half-back Brodie Smith – travelled to the Gold Coast.
Burton said ruckman Sam Jacobs was coping in the face of a family tragedy while vice captain Rory Sloane had recovered from an appendectomy and would front in the preliminary final.
“Sauce (Jacobs) is going well. As he has highlighted it is a tough period for him. He has good support networks around. He is back into training,” said Burton.
“Sloaney is tracking along really well. Has the steps in his rehabilitation program progressing as expected and have no hesitation he will be fine.”