Matt Turner: How a pre-season of optimism turned to misery in 14 weeks for Adelaide Crows
The Crows were denied a finals berth in 2023 by an incorrect umpiring call. Heading into 2024, optimism was boundless and yet it has gone awry for Adelaide. So what happened?
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Adelaide Crows chairman John Olsen is on stage in Morphettville Racecourse’s function room when he looks at the seated audience and sets the tone for the club’s 2024 campaign.
“I can’t recall being as optimistic heading into a new season,” Olsen said on February 28.
“You might say, ‘why’?
“Membership numbers are tracking much better than last year … ticket sales are already 50 per cent up from 12 months ago, we have eight new sponsors … and another five new corporate partners have extended their partnerships before a game was even played.
“All have seen the upside of the Adelaide Football Club and what we are building.
“We’ve got the right people on and off the field.
“Expectation is higher both internally and externally.
“We embrace it, we are not intimidated by it and we’ve got something to prove after that game at the end of the season last year.
“With Tex (Taylor Walker) playing like an All-Australian, we expect to play finals this year.”
Fourteen weeks after Olsen’s address at the Crows’ season launch, the club’s optimism has been replaced by misery.
Coach Matthew Nicks said after Thursday night’s home loss to a one-win Richmond that his team had no confidence and was in a “pretty dark spot” while conceding the club’s finals hopes were all but over.
Nicks had not looked that deflated post-match since the club’s wooden spoon season in 2020, his first year at the helm.
That campaign began with 13 consecutive losses, but there were green shoots late as Adelaide won three of its last four matches.
It was optimism about Nicks being a premiership coach in waiting that led the club to re-sign him in March – after round 1 – until the end of 2026.
Olsen defended that decision on Wednesday.
“We believed at the time, and still do, that Matthew Nicks is the right coach for the Adelaide Football Club currently,” he said of the fifth-year mentor, who had led the club to bottom, 15th, 14th and 10th-placed finishes.
Just over 24 hours later, you wondered if Nicks would ever take this team to the top eight, let alone a flag as the club’s hierarchy envisioned.
This week was supposed to be one of celebration for the Crows after they finally received a green light to redevelop their proposed new home at Thebarton Oval.
But what the club has been building on-field looks like it is made with a house of cards.
Some of that is not of its own doing.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve played finals and, like every team, we will need our share of luck for that,” Olsen said at the season launch.
Nicks that night described a photo of Riley Thilthorpe as resembling a painting and said the 22-year forward had taken the next step after being in rare form over summer.
Three days later, Thilthorpe tore his lateral meniscus in his left knee in the club’s last pre-season trial, sidelining him until mid-year.
It was the Crows’ first gut punch of 2024.
They have not been able to replace him.
Warning signs arose in the season-opening away loss to Gold Coast when Adelaide had kicked just one goal to half-time.
The Crows – the highest scoring team of 2023 – were then goalless in the last term of a frustrating round-3 loss to Fremantle.
Wayne Milera’s season ended that day because of a patella tendon injury.
Soon, Adelaide was 0-4, before recovering to win three and draw one of its next five matches.
Then key defender Josh Worrell broke his arm last month just as he was having a breakout season.
Walker, who is coming off a second-place finish in the Coleman Medal and AFL team of the year honours, is not playing like an All-Australian but instead dealing with a back issue.
Star Izak Rankine has been out with a hamstring injury for a fortnight.
Revitalised midfielder Matt Crouch suffered a season-ending shoulder issue last week.
Key backman Nick Murray has not played at AFL level this year after rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament in July.
Those absences could be used as excuses against a premiership contender at close to full strength.
But take a quick look at Richmond’s outs from Thursday night’s eight-point win: Dustin Martin, Tom Lynch, Dylan Grimes, Jacob Hopper, Marlion Pickett.
Nicks’s season launch comment about how so much of the squad had improved, it was difficult to fit 28 into 23 now looked futile.
“It’s an exciting time for us because there’s are a lot of players I think have taken another step,” he said in February.
Outside of some of its key names against the Tigers, Adelaide’s team looked on paper – and played early – a little like its two-win SANFL side.
Olsen forecast this week that the Crows would play the youngest team of the round.
That happening five years into a rebuild is cause for concern.
Mentioning it pre-match, before the teams were even named, felt like a ready-made excuse.
Adelaide’s average age was 24.1, but the Tigers were not that much older at 24.9.
Several of the Crows’ brightest young prospects have stood still or gone backwards in 2024.
Defenders Max Michalanney and Worrell, and on-baller Jake Soligo are notable exceptions.
Luke Nankervis, James Borlase and Brayden Cook have improved, while Billy Dowling made a positive debut.
What about some of the others?
Speaking about this season in February, Olsen said: “The coaches are telling you Luke Pedlar is going to be a midfield star”.
Pedlar has featured just four times at AFL level, twice getting subbed off because of a shoulder problem.
In his two full games, he recorded a total of 18 disposals, two behinds and one tackle.
He was overlooked for AFL selection for a third straight match this week despite Adelaide’s injury woes as he returned from his shoulder issue.
Josh Rachele, one of the youngsters Olsen highlighted along with Pedlar, has been inconsistent.
Hard nut Sam Berry has been the substitute or subbed off in six of his eight AFL matches.
Olsen also praised Adelaide’s new-look leadership group at the season launch.
Four months on, two of them – ruckman Reilly O’Brien and small forward Lachlan Murphy – have spent time in the SANFL.
Vice-captain O’Brien was dropped this week, while Murphy played three state-league matches as he recovered from a knee issue.
Brodie Smith and Ben Keays are the other two vice-captains.
Smith is in the middle of a poor season and has perhaps been lucky to hold his spot this long.
Keays’ form has dipped.
New leader Darcy Fogarty had played pretty well over the past month – and impressively against the Tigers – but made a slow start to the year.
Captain Jordan Dawson, whom Olsen described in February as no fuss and all class, also overcame an indifferent opening to 2024
“He lets his footy do the talking and has a laser-like focus on team performance,” Olsen said of the skipper at the season launch.
Post-game on Thursday night, a dejected Dawson was the only player the Crows put up to face the music.
Typically, several players do the media rounds.
Keays fronted a press conference on Friday.
Chief executive Tim Silvers spoke later in the day, grilled about how they got here and what would happen next.
Olsen said in February the Crows had something to prove this year.
The only thing they have proven so far is that they are a hell of a long way from where they thought and hoped to be.
“We’ve got the right people on and off the field,” Olsen said four months ago.
It does not look like it right now.
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