Since his appointment as Adelaide coach, Matthew Nicks has reinstalled the trust that was missing at the Crows

Matthew Nicks arrived at the Adelaide Crows with a mission to rebuild the trust that had slowly been eroded from West Lakes over the previous two seasons. And he’s already made significant progress, writes Michelangelo Rucci.

AFL - Adelaide Crows official photo day at the West Lakes Club Rooms. Players get put into position with captain Rory Sloane and New Coach Matthew Nicks front and centre -. Picture SARAH REED

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Matthew Nicks carries to the Adelaide Football Club – as its fourth consecutive first-time coach – a theme that he has lived since playing as a Swan.

Trust.

It is Nicks’ defining ethos.

Where Malcolm Blight was about keeping it brutally simple, and Neil Craig was relentless and untiring in his search for any edge in preparing a team, Nicks wants to build the strongest bridge in the critical coach-player relationship.

Trust.

With such a commanding philosophy, it is obvious why Nicks’ appointment as coach supersedes the findings of last year’s external review that recommended the hiring of a new staffer to rebuild the team and club’s culture.

Considering Nicks lived the “no d***heads” theme in his 175 AFL games across 10 years at Sydney, this emphasis on trust goes well beyond being sure of what a player will deliver on match day.

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Coach Matthew Nicks, flanked by Rory Sloane (left) and Tom Lynch, has not put a foot wrong since arriving at Adelaide. Picture: Sarah Reed

Can Nicks trust his players outside the white lines of an AFL field in how they prepare, how they behave, how they devote themselves to a potentially suffocating, all-consuming task of winning an AFL premiership?

And how does Nicks do this without introducing the inevitable traps created by curfews, alcohol bans and any other restrictive measure that ultimately seems to create more problems than avert them?

To quote Ernest Hemingway, “the best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them”.

So far, Nicks has – unlike his predecessor Don Pyke from the 2017-18 pre-season after the pain of the 2017 AFL grand final loss to Richmond – not had to deal nor dress down any player for failing the “trust” test in how he presented himself for summer training.

Nicks – unlike another first-time coach, Brenton Sanderson, in the 2012 pre-season – has not had to wait for his club to deliver a verdict on disciplining a player for an off-field indiscretion.

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Nicks’ message during pre-season has been built around ‘trust’. Picture: Sarah Reed

Nicks – unlike Phil Walsh in the summer leading up to the dramatic 2015 season – has not had to seriously address the vexing alcohol debate after a group of Crows players enjoyed the Adelaide Oval hill during an international cricket match.

It has been a near-perfect pre-season, giving Nicks the ideal response to any question of whether a “ticking time bomb” (as a fellow candidate for the Adelaide coaching job wondered in October) remained at West Lakes.

Internally, trust is a four-way highway.

The team has to trust the coach, a theme that clearly broke down for Pyke.

The coach has to trust the team, a concept Nicks has emphasised.

Players must trust their fellow players – and, as some Crows players revealed last year, their changerooms was split in three factions last season.

And a player must trust himself.

From Adelaide’s external review, led by former Hawthorn goalkicking giant Jason Dunstall, some senior Crows officials have taken comfort in learning their bonds of trust with the players have not been corroded by the events of 2018-19.

Nicks at training. Picture: Sarah Reed

This is reassuring for Nicks.

Internally, the Crows are stronger than some would imagine after two difficult seasons – and this is the first mark of success for Nicks.

But how does the trust question stack up externally?

In his first presentation to the media at West Lakes in November, Nicks sat through a session that delivered a universal response on what was expected from the outside: honesty.

The never-ageing Peter Pan says: “All the world is made up of facts, trust and pixie dust”.

As much as Adelaide wants season 2020 to be seen as something “magical”, a little less “pixie dust” would help rebuild some trust in what the Crows say, in a year when it should not be just about Nicks creating unprecedented trust within his changerooms.

Originally published as Since his appointment as Adelaide coach, Matthew Nicks has reinstalled the trust that was missing at the Crows