Adelaide Crows have dumped Collective Mind from its program as players divided

ADELAIDE Football Club has responded to the player and supporter backlash over its controversial pre-season camp by ditching high-performance and psychological training company Collective Mind.

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ADELAIDE Football Club has responded to the player and supporter backlash over its controversial pre-season camp by ditching high-performance and psychological training company Collective Mind.

The Crows on Saturday finally conceded the Gold Coast camp, labelled by coach Don Pyke as a “fail”, had not resonated with all players and the program behind it had caused divisions among the group. The club also revealed players were blindfolded and forced to listen to grand final- winning Richmond’s club song on a bus trip and asked to share highly personal details.

The details of the camp came after The Advertiser on Saturday revealed one Aboriginal player took personal leave from the club to return home seeking cultural support.

Despite initially denying the club’s indigenous players had taken issue with some of the camp practices, the club then conceded it had caused problems, including during a Welcome To Country ceremony.

“There was an indigenous artefact that was used, a talking stick, and that had a connection to one of our players and his cultural background,” head of football Brett Burton said.

“Was it a miss? Yes, absolutely … when we got back from the camp, that was raised and we sought clarity.

Adelaide Crows football manager Brett Burton and Adelaide Crows senior coach Don Pyke speak to the media during a press conference at AAMI Stadium on Saturday. Picture: Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images

“He went back to his cultural background just to make sure it had been passed on in the right way.

“It was more just a clarification of where that artefact came from and that was cleared up by the elders.”

Burton confirmed the club had mutually agreed to part ways with Collective Mind within the 24 hours before on Saturday’s 3pm media conference. “We didn’t come away with a positive result from the camp,” Burton said.

But Pyke was more blunt.

“I’d say it was a fail,” he said.

“It’s fair to say that some of those sessions didn’t hit the mark and didn’t resonate with the players.”

Pyke conceded the program had caused differences within the playing group.

Some players had spoken highly of Collective Mind but there were others who did not want anything to do with the psychological training.

“If you look at all the reasons why we’ve decided to terminate it, (dividing the playing group) is not a major reason, but it is a concern from a program viewpoint,” Pyke said.

“We want to make sure programs we’re running inside our club have complete buy-in from everyone.”

Players were blindfolded and subjected to the Richmond club song on a bus trip and also had their mobile phones taken away during the camp. Highly personal and emotional details were also shared in a bid to help bring the team closer together but left some players distressed and resulted in them refusing to take part in the mindfullness program.

Pyke said that, in hindsight, the club should have better communicated to the players what was likely to happen on the camp to prevent the issues that later arose. .

Despite parting ways, the Collective Mind website on Saturday still listed the Crows as one of its 36 clients, which also include the BBC, Mars, NSW Ambulance, Reserve Bank, South Sydney Rabbitohs, St Kilda and Universal Sony.

Burton said the club was going to “change tack and (had) gone on a different path” during the next pre-season.

“Clearly we had some good impact with the program but this year it hasn’t gone the way we wanted it to, that’s from both parties,” he said.

“We’ve had some good stuff out of it, but when you come to a mid-season review and you reflect on what’s going well, what’s not, we’re not comfortable where that program is at, at the moment.” Burton moved to hose down the fact that Collective Mind was not run by registered psychologists. He said it was common practice for coaches such as Pyke to also guide players with their mental training.

“These guys are not psychologists, they don’t profess to be psychologists,” Burton said. “They’re mental skills coaches.

“Don educates the players on mental skills as well. He talks to them about their mindset, visualisation, reset tools.”

The Collective Mind program was responsible for the intimidating “presence stance” (above) during last year’s finals series.

Late on Saturday night, Collective Mind released a statement that “confirms that, together with the Adelaide Crows, we’ve decided to end our formal partnership”. “We believe this is in the best interests of both organisations,” the statement says. “We’re really proud of what we achieved together in 2017, including the Crows being minor premiers and grand finalists.

“While there have been many positives in 2018, we acknowledge and have acted upon some concerns around the pre-season camp. However, the ongoing focus on this has been distracting for the club and the players, and was a key factor in this decision for us. To allow the players and the club as a whole to move on, we won’t be making any further comment. We’re very proud to have worked with this fantastic club and we wish them all the best.”