Graham Cornes: How the Adelaide Crows can end sad saga and become a destination club again
It is up to Matthew Nicks as coach to inspire players from other clubs to want to join the rebuilding Crows, writes Graham Cornes.
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Pathos: a quality that evokes pity or sadness.
That’s how far they have sunk. It’s moved beyond ridicule and criticism.
They criticise and ridicule you when you are a threat to them. For no longer do they perceive the Adelaide Football Club as a threat.
The Brad Crouch deal is the classic case. It played out meekly in the end as it was always going to. It seems standard procedure now at West Lakes.
Player nears end of contract; enterprising manager (interpret ‘enterprising’ any way you like) seeks better deal; Crows won’t match deal; player leaves.
You have to feel sorry for them.
They were always going to get shafted simply because they had no bargaining power.
And there wasn’t much they could do about it. Match the deal and they would have to sign him to a four-year contract $600-700,000 per year, with a trigger for a fifth year.
Responsible list management could not contemplate that commitment to a player who has been so injury prone and inconsistent in form.
So, another player leaves because a rival club either sees something in him that the Crows don’t, or perhaps hasn’t done its due diligence.
If we exclude Patrick Dangerfield, as we surely must, the Crows haven’t really been hurt by players that they have let go. Jack Gunston maybe, but his was a calculated, almost devious strategy, and they didn’t let him go.
He simply walked out. But of all the others, including Jake Lever and Alex Keath, Jarryd Lyons is perhaps the one whose potential they underestimated.
Rory Atkins walked out this year but even though he has certain likeable qualities, he had become a fringe player at the Crows.
More concerning than the players who have left, is the fact that Adelaide is not a ‘destination club’.
Sad as that may be, it never has been - even for South Australian players who you would think would jump at the chance to come home.
One of these new age phrases, ‘destination club’, has become a trendy expression for teams that can offer star players big money, promise of finals experiences, or for those who have been seduced by the hype of the opportunity to play in Melbourne on the MCG every week.
How easy is it for a top team like Richmond to attract a star player like Tom Lynch, or Geelong, Jeremy Cameron?
Hawthorn built its dynasty by selective recruiting, not by any special draft acumen.
The greatest player the Crows have been able lure back home was Darren Jarman.
Matthew Robran returned to Adelaide and played in two premierships and Tony Hall and Greg Anderson also came home but that was nearly three decades ago.
In recent times it’s been only discarded fringe players who have been lured to Adelaide. Ben Keays had a good season for the Crows this year but Ben Keays is not Brodie Grundy or Jeremy Cameron.
So how does Adelaide become a ‘destination club’?
For a start they have to move from West Lakes.
Bringing a prospective recruit to West Lakes is like trying to sell a house that is undergoing renovations or a car that is in for crash-repairs.
However, as that won’t happen in the near future, the club has to rely on other strategies.
A close examination of other successful clubs exposes the real secret.
At every successful club there is a charismatic, dynamic leader.
It’s normally the coach, but it could be the president, or the chief executive, or a key player – perhaps a combination of all.
At Brisbane between 2000-2004, it was Leigh Matthews; Hawthorn had Jeff Kennett, or was it Alastair Clarkson; Richmond has Brendan Gale and Damien Hardwick; Collingwood, Eddie McGuire and Nathan Buckley; Geelong, Joel Selwood and Patrick Dangerfield.
It is true players are often lured to other clubs by offers of huge money, but by far the biggest incentive a club can offer is the potential to succeed.
That is why Brisbane and Gold Coast are now seen as ‘destination clubs’. Eventually, those years of poor performance, for which they are rewarded with early draft picks, have to show dividends.
Brisbane may have choked in its past two finals campaigns but led by a ‘senior’, charismatic coach, Chris Fagan, it is now a serious premiership threat. The Suns also finally look to have a competitive playing list.
The other attraction to Queensland, as those Victorians who have been sequestered there will now attest, is the weather. Melbourne and its bitter winters, or sunny Queensland? Hmm.
So what can the Adelaide Football Club sell its prospective recruits?
Well several things. For a start the city is one of the best, safest and cheapest places in Australia in which to live.
Get them living at a beachside suburb that they could never afford in Melbourne or Sydney.
However, the future success of the Crows is unlikely to come from high-priced, mercenary recruits.
It will come from the players they can develop, making this year’s draft, in which the Crows have so many early picks, now the most critical in the club’s history.
So, the most compelling attraction that the Adelaide Football Club has to offer is a vision of its future.
Mathew Nicks’s job is to sell and deliver that vision.
We all felt sorry for him this season but no more pathos.
This sad saga can end now.
Originally published as Graham Cornes: How the Adelaide Crows can end sad saga and become a destination club again