Matthew Nicks’ rise from Paul Roos’ babysitter to ‘perfect modern coach’ for Adelaide
New Adelaide mentor Matthew Nicks has been hailed as “the perfect modern coach” to turn the Crows around, but it wasn’t always like that for the former Sydney Swan, coaching great Paul Roos says.
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New Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks hasn’t always been a good manager of people.
“He was a terrible babysitter,” his former Sydney coach Paul Roos said yesterday.
“He minded my kids. Him, Micky O’Loughlin and Simon Arnott left the fridge open and turned chocolate away for some space.
“They weren’t worth paying because they were that bad.”
Roos remembers Nicks as being a “rascal” in his early playing days with the Swans, but that eventually changed as the forward matured into a strong trainer with a high football IQ.
“He probably went through that social phase before he realised footy was more than that,” Roos said.
“He had a bit of rascal in him as a player which isn’t a bad thing when you come into coaching because you see the full circle.
“He was a very smart half-forward who knew the game and how to find the footy. He was pretty easy to coach and he was a good teammate who was always really popular.”
A stress fracture in his leg ended Nicks’ career on 175 games just weeks after his 30th birthday and 15 games before the Swans went on to win a breakthrough premiership in 2005.
Having studied finance, Nicks became a stockbroker post-football.
But in 2007, he returned to the game as senior coach of the University of New South Wales team before moving home to Adelaide to lead Scotch College in 2009.
What followed was an eight-year stint at Port Adelaide beginning in 2011 as development coach, and leading to roles as an assistant coach and senior assistant coach.
Nicks then spent this year as an assistant under Leon Cameron at Greater Western Sydney.
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Former Port Adelaide captain Domenic Cassisi played under Nicks at the Power and labelled him the “perfect modern day coach”.
“The first thing you pick up with Nicksy is his enthusiasm. He just loves people and seeing people improve,” Cassisi said.
“He’s very clear the way he puts his message across. He’d do great visual presentations with a bit of audio and he’d challenge people with questions. He had quite an interactive teaching style.
“When Kenny (Hinkley) came across he was pretty much in charge of our defensive method and we were pretty damaging those few years on the back of our defence.
“People gravitate towards him. You can see the Crows are a bit disjointed at the moment. He’s the perfect guy to go in there because he loves a hit of golf, he’s happy to have a beer, he worked out of the footy industry for a number of years. So he’s got a holistic approach.
“He’s got a young family and you can see him opening up the house and hosting barbecues.”
Nicks was one of nine coaches to go through the inaugural AFL Level Four Senior Coach Program in 2015, and becomes the fourth of those to land a senior role behind Brendon Bolton (Carlton), Simon Goodwin (Melbourne) and Stuart Dew (Gold Coast Suns).
Roos said he had no doubt Nicks had the coaching “pedigree” to perform and handle the Adelaide fishbowl.
“He’s seen the pressures of coaching in Adelaide which will obviously step up a bit now he’s senior coach of the Crows in a two-team town,” Roos said.
“I love the skill set and I think he’s as well prepared as anyone.”