Matthew Nicks’ journey from junior soccer player, to West Adelaide reserves flag, Sydney Swans and now Adelaide Crows coach

Matthew Nicks was a talented junior soccer player who only turned to football in his teens at West Adelaide before being drafted to Sydney. Now the journey has led him to becoming the Adelaide Crows’ new coach.

Port Adelaide Power football team pre-season training at Alberton Oval. Defensive coach Matthew Nicks.

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Matthew Nicks’ first ever touch in AFL football, on debut at the SCG in Round 3, 1996, was a ‘hanger’ over … Scott Burns.

Now 23 years later, Nicks has beaten him and other quality candidates in the race to become Adelaide’s next senior coach.

The 44-year-old also pipped the likes of Robert Harvey, Garry Hocking and Adem Yze to take over from Don Pyke, who stood down last month after four seasons, a grand final and the highest winning percentage of any Crows coach in history (60.8 per cent).

A born-and-raised South Australian, Nicks was a state junior soccer player who only turned to football in his teens before he was drafted by Sydney from West Adelaide with Pick No. 21 in the 1994 national draft.

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Matthew Nicks in his Sydney Swans headshot in 1996.

That year he played in the West Adelaide’s reserves premiership alongside Tyson Edwards and was drafted to the Swans at the same time as Michael O’Loughlin, who went at Pick No. 40.

Nicks broke his leg in his first week of pre-season training with Sydney and sat out his entire first year in 1995, but eventually made his AFL debut in Round 3, 1996, when Tony Lockett kicked eight goals in a 34-point win over Collingwood.

Nicks had three kicks and five handballs and according to an interview he gave the Swans’ website in 2018, his first touch was a “hanger” over Burns.

“I remember thinking ‘this is pretty easy’ which of course it wasn’t,” he said.

“I was rapt just to be out there, I remember crumbing one under Plugger which was pretty good too, we had a good win, otherwise it’s a bit of a blur.”

Nicks played 175 games in 10 years with the Swans but missed out on their drought breaking flag in 2005 due to injury.

Nicks went on to play 175 games in 10 years at Sydney, finishing top five in the best-and-fairest and earning a rising star nomination and most improved player award, but he cruelly missed out on the 2005 premiership after playing only nine games in his final season due to a stress fracture in his femur.

“As a group we worked hard on what we stood for and how we wanted to play, and that was really the beginning of the ‘Bloods’ culture which started in 2005,” Nicks said in 2018.

“He (captain Stuart Maxfield) sort of started it, and year by year everyone bought in. It used to be a thing … how do you earn your stripes to become a Blood?

“It’s a non-negotiable set of standards, and even as an outsider now it’s still the same. Young blokes like (Dan) Hannebery and (Isaac) Heeney are superstars but they play with a real ferociousness that reminds me of all those years ago.”

Nicks also served as forward and backline coach at Port Adelaide before joining GWS this season.

Nicks retired in 2005 and having studied finance, got a job as a stockbroker. But he returned to football in 2007 as coach of the University of New South Wales’ senior side which included now Sydney captain Dane Rampe.

In 2009 he returned to South Australia and coached Scotch College First XVIII which included Crows club champion and All-Australian Rory Laird.

Two years later in 2011 he joined Port Adelaide as development coach, defence coach in 2013, forwards coach in 2016 and senior assistant coach in 2017 before leaving to join GWS under Leon Cameron for the 2019 season.

Nicks worked with Port Adelaide for eight years, rising from development coach to senior assistant under Ken Hinkley. Picture: Sarah Reed.

In 2015 he was hand-picked to complete the AFL’s level four coaching course alongside the likes of Stuart Dew, Brendon Bolton, Robert Harvey, Blake Caracella, Simon Goodwin and Adam Kingsley.

“Do I want to be a senior coach? Yes. I’m confident enough to think one day I can sit in the hot seat and have success, but I’m not in any rush, and I don’t think I need to go and coach my own team before I feel like I’m ready,” he said in 2018.

Port Adelaide chief executive Keith Thomas yesterday described Nicks as a football person who is “really strong around culture”.

“He came out of the Bloods era of the Sydney Swans and that was his formative period, a really good coach for us, we enjoyed our time with Nicksy and he’s done some good work with GWS,” Thomas told SEN.

“He is very much around the importance of great culture, that’s his sweet spot”.

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