Andrew Capel: Embracing change in pursuit of promise land
After consecutive years without finals, season 2020 offers contrasting scenarios for the Adelaide and Port Adelaide football clubs, writes Andrew Capel.
Crows
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New Crows’ coach Matthew Nicks should be walking into a honeymoon period. The former Power and GWS assistant coach, who played 175 games for the Sydney Swans, is taking over a side that has endured two nightmare years since being a beaten favourite in the 2017 grand final.
Minor premier in coach Don Pyke’s second year at the club, Adelaide’s fall from grace started on grand-final day, when it failed to bring its “A game” on the biggest stage of all at the MCG and slumped to an eight-goal defeat. This was quickly followed by key players Jake Lever (Melbourne) and Charlie Cameron (Brisbane) leaving and the infamous pre-season “mind” camp to the Gold Coast, which rocked the club to its core.
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The Crows won 17 of 25 games, with one draw, in 2017 when they finished minor premier on the back of a high-octane attack. They have won just 22 of their 44 since and lost a host of key veteran players in the off-season, including cult hero goalsneak Eddie Betts and popular, lion-hearted ruckman Sam Jacobs.
Pyke resigned amid an end-of-season external review, where it appeared he had lost the trust of the playing group, which in itself was fractured. Head of football Brett Burton and senior assistant coach Scott Camporeale were fired. Now Nicks – supported by a new head of football, former SANFL general manager of football Adam Kelly – is charged with a major rejuvenation project.
“Where I’m positioned and the style of coach that I am, Adelaide footy club was screaming out for what I can bring,” Nicks said at the time of his appointment in September.
“I’ve been ready to coach for a while. I was waiting for the right opportunity and this was the right opportunity. It’s going to be a huge challenge for us, but it’s not one that we’re daunted by. We’ll embrace that challenge.’’
Nicks, 44, is a self-confessed “relationships-built’’ coach who learnt a “team-first’’ mentality from his time at the Swans, which preaches the famous “Bloods culture’’.
“A team-first mentality also sits at the core of all successful clubs, and from this day forward, it will always be a clear focus and priority,” he said.
“I always talk to the players and say ‘You’ve chosen a sport that involves teammates, so embrace that’.
“I don’t remember anything individual about my career, it’s all about team. You run into old teammates and you look and just smile at each other and the respect is huge.
“That’s the stuff I look back on and if you ask me, ‘Why do you coach the way you coach, and why are you the person you are’, it’s all because of the team.’’
The players have already embraced Nicks’s style, suggesting he has been a breath of fresh air at West Lakes. But the Crows will face their challenges on the field next season.
With Betts (Carlton), Jacobs (GWS), Josh Jenkins (Geelong), Alex Keath (Western Bulldogs), Hugh Greenwood (Gold Coast), Cam Ellis-Yolmen (Brisbane) and Richard Douglas (retired) departing, Adelaide’s age profile has dropped from being the third-oldest in the competition (24.76) to 12th (23.87).
In another key change, five-year skipper Taylor Walker has relinquished the captaincy he last season shared with good mate Rory Sloane, leaving Sloane to almost certainly captain the team in his own right. While Nicks will be given time to find his feet, the club is staring at an unwanted slice of history. Only once has it failed to make the finals for three consecutive years.
That was from 1994-96 when the club fell into an abyss following its painful 1993 preliminary-final loss to eventual premier Essendon when it coughed up a 42-point halftime lead.
Inaugural coach Graham Cornes oversaw the stumble from third in 1993 to 11th in 1994 before he was sacked and the club endured two horror years under Robert Shaw, finishing 11th and 12th.
Then came the man dubbed “The Messiah”, Malcolm Blight, who sensationally steered the club to successive premierships in his first two years in charge in 1997 and 1998.
The Crows haven’t been back to the promised land since.
Port Adelaide Power
In contrast to Matthew Nicks, Power coach Ken Hinkley is facing a make-or-break season.
After taking Port Adelaide to the finals in his first two years in charge in 2013 (fifth) and 2014 (third), the club has played just one finals match in five years since – heartbreakingly losing the 2017 elimination final in extra time to West Coast.
Chief executive Keith Thomas, who has announced that 2020 will be his swan song, quickly ended debate about Hinkley’s future at the end of the season – amid strong supporter backlash – by declaring he would remain in charge next year.
The eight-year mentor is contracted to 2021 but the final year is only triggered if Port plays finals.
Rarely has a coach been under so much pressure, as Hinkley steers the club into its 150th anniversary celebrations with his job on the line.
“I feel, hear, notice it,” Hinkley said of the intense pressure on him.
“Any coach does – you understand that the job has got a great responsibility. I’m not frightened of that. I’m embracing that and challenging myself and the team to make sure that we deliver. If you are not making finals, you run a risk as coach; I get that.
“The reality is that if you don’t get to a level of performance that is seen as satisfactory, then you eventually lose your job.’’
But Hinkley – after introducing highly-rated teenagers Connor Rozee, Xavier Duursma and Zak Butters to the AFL last season – has faith in his playing group.
“We have put together a list that gives us a great opportunity going forward,’’ he said.
As with the Crows, there has been a key on-field change, with the Power abandoning its controversial co-captaincy model after just one year to return to one skipper. Tom Jonas will wear the prized No. 1 guernsey in its celebratory year, with Ollie Wines relegated to vice-captaincy duties alongside Hamish Hartlett.
But in a season that Port is building up so strongly, anything less than a finals appearance would be considered untenable – for club and coach.