Adelaide’s senior players endorse mind training amid claims a Gold Coast camp left them ‘distressed'
ADELAIDE says no player sought or required psychological help and there has been no contact from the AFL Players’ Association in the wake of a Gold Coast pre-season training camp that was designed to test the players’ mental resilience.
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ADELAIDE says no player sought or required psychological help and there has been no contact from the AFL Players’ Association in the wake of a Gold Coast pre-season training camp that was designed to test the players’ mental resilience.
Despite a Fox Footy report that stated senior players were left “mentally distressed” and “bewildered” by what they were asked to do on the camp, the Crows confirmed they would continue working with the mind-training company that ran the program ‘Collective Mind’ for the next two years.
The club also described the report as greatly inflammatory and in parts widely inaccurate but would only issue the following statement:
“We have been exploring this space (mental strength) for a couple of years and in the world of sport the power of the mind is now put up there with physical conditioning in terms of elite performance,” the statement read.
Adelaide’s partnership with Collective Mind started before the 2017 season and senior players including captain Taylor Walker, Daniel Talia, Mitch McGovern, Brodie Smith and Rory Laird feature in a video on the its website with high praise for the program.
The Advertiser understands a small group of senior players — and not draftees or young players — took part in the most extensive mind training exercises on the Gold Coast training camp in which they were blindfolded while on a bus.
But the club insists there are no players with ongoing issues or needing psychological help.
The AFLPA said on Tuesday it had not received any formal complaints from Crows players about the camp and were not investigating the claims that senior players were broken by it.
Collective Mind — which also works with NRL club South Sydney — declined to comment on Tuesday.
Adelaide has been working in the mental training space for at least 12 months and that has included meditation sessions.
“You don’t realise how powerful it (mind) can be and how it can affect your performance,” Talia said in a video on the Collective Mind website.
“I’d never visualised before my performance, I’d always gone out there and done it, and I now sit down before a game and visualise who I’m playing on or what sort of situations I’m going to be in and that’s a pretty powerful tool.
“In the past I’ve been a very negative thinker, real hard on myself about my performance and worrying about the game before it’s even happened, and now all my thoughts and energy are channelled positively and I’ve got mental clarity and know what I need to do.”
Laird and McGovern said it helped them remove mental lapses in games, Smith said it had helped his leadership and had brought the group closer together, while Josh Jenkins said he was initially sceptical but had been convinced of its worth.
“I was probably one of the guys who had the most amount of resistance to mind training. I used to think ‘just let me go home and lay on the couch and that would refresh me and improve me’,” Jenkins said.
“I’ve learnt so much in the mind training sessions, it can be easy to drift in and out of the game mentally and you don’t even know it but (this) makes me and us aware of it and what happens when you go into those phases and how you can get out of it.”
Speaking on Triple M on Tuesday morning, Walker said the Gold Coast training camp was one of the most “beneficial and rewarding” things he had done and he would recommend it to his closest friends and family.
Walker said suggestions the players were asked to fill out disturbing questionnaires was “incorrect” and he was not aware of any player who was left depressed or needing help.
reece.homfray@news.com.au
Originally published as Adelaide’s senior players endorse mind training amid claims a Gold Coast camp left them ‘distressed'
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