Ex-Adelaide Crows captain Mark Bickley and inaugural coach Graham Cornes ask fans to embrace rebuild as a ‘journey’
Former captain Mark Bickley says Adelaide was always in for a tough season as it undergoes a significant rebuild – but not even he could predict the Crows would start the year 0-7.
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Two former Crows leaders are confident the side will win a game this season but say Adelaide supporters need to embrace the club’s first rebuild as “part of the journey”.
Adelaide is 0-7 and on its longest losing streak after sustaining a 10th successive defeat on Monday night, by 23 points at home to St Kilda.
No VFL/AFL team has ended a season winless since Fitzroy in 1964 and Crows dual premiership captain Mark Bickley and inaugural Adelaide coach Graham Cornes insist the club will end its victory drought sometime in its remaining 10 matches.
The club has never truly “bottomed out” since joining the AFL in 1991 until this year and the upside will be getting its highest draft pick, plus other early selections.
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Adelaide’s lowest finish is 14th – in a 17-team competition in 2011 – and its earliest draft pick is Fischer McAsey at six last year.
Bickley said plenty of people thought 2020 might be a down year for the Crows “but I don’t think they thought they were going to be 0-7”.
He said it was difficult to judge if it was the worst side in the club’s history, although “when you sit two games worse than the next worse team after seven rounds, the numbers would suggest that”.
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“The first month was a little bit more dire than what I expected,” Bickley told News Corp.
“I think in the last two weeks there’s been some positive signs … but the reality is they’re still playing lots of kids and they’re going to take some time.
“I don’t have any worry that they’ll go winless … but when that win is, I’ve got no confidence in being able to predict.”
Cornes said underperforming senior players, taking time to adjust to new coach Matthew Nicks while battling coronavirus training restrictions, the competition break and fielding an inexperienced team were “a perfect storm” that had contributed to the club’s slide.
He said this was “clearly not the best Crows team”, but you could mount a case it was more talented than the inaugural squad in 1991.
In that season, the club was thrashed twice in Melbourne – by 123 points against Collingwood at Victoria Park and 131 points to St Kilda at Moorabbin.
Adelaide’s biggest losses this season has been 75 points to Port Adelaide in Round 2.
“They’ve not won a game but they’ve had nowhere near the record losses you’d find in the club’s history,” Cornes said.
Bickley was pleased they were finally choosing to rebuild to obtain top-end draft talent.
“This (0-7 and struggling) is part of the journey,” he said.
“There’s been plenty of other times the Crows have not really embraced a rebuild.
“What you end up doing is finishing between ninth and 12th, and you get pick eight.”
Cornes agreed, saying possibly having the No. 1 selection for the first time was exciting.
“You don’t wish to finish bottom but there’s a consolation for doing that and compensation as well,” he said.
Cornes, who steered Adelaide to a preliminary final in 1993 and was at the helm from 1991-94, said Crows fans had been spoiled by the club being perennially competitive.
“Very rarely could you go to a Crows game and not have an expectation of winning,” he said.
“You don’t have that expectation at the moment and that’s disappointing, but it can turn around pretty quickly.”
Cornes said Adelaide was showing positive signs in recent weeks and Nicks needed to maintain players’ morale.
“They haven’t dropped the bundle, they’re fighting through it and the opportunities will come,” he said.
“They’ll jag a win and they’re not far off.”
TOP CROW SAYS HE’S NOT FLYING THE NEST
Adelaide chief executive Andrew Fagan has denied speculation he is heading for the exit door at West Lakes.
The Crows boss has been linked in media reports to the vacant CEO role at Rugby Australia and on Monday to the top job at NRL club the Brisbane Broncos.
Fagan told News Corp he had not had any contact with either organisation or their recruiting firms, and he was committed to the rebuild at Adelaide and had no plans on walking away.
“Speculation when jobs become available is a regular part of this industry,” Fagan said on Monday night.
“My 100 per cent focus is on our existing challenges in working our way through this pandemic and implementing the plan that will deliver the success on field that we all desire.
“And I’m excited about the future at West Lakes and the plan that we are establishing.”
Speculation of Fagan’s departure after six years as chief executive at Adelaide has surfaced in the past three weeks on the back of the Crows’ 0-6 start to the season and separate reports that the infamous pre-season camp in 2018 continued to plague the club.
His wife Alana is from Sydney, where Fagan was raised before studying in Canberra and working in rugby as chief executive of the ACT Brumbies for eight years before joining the Crows.
Fagan has been central to the off-field restructure at Adelaide which started with the departure of senior coach Don Pyke, senior assistant Scott Camporeale and football manager Brett Burton at the end of last season.
He was involved in appointing new coach Matthew Nicks and head of football Adam Kelly who are both eight months into the job of rebuilding the playing list which missed finals the past two years.
Fagan is on staff at Adelaide and not on a contract, and has repeatedly had the public backing of current chairman Rob Chapman and his board.
Despite this, he was publicly linked to the Rugby Australia CEO role which became vacant in April when Raelene Castle stepped down after two-and-a-half years.
Asked whether he had reached out to Rugby Australia or had any contact from it, Fagan said “no”.
While rugby sources claim Fagan would be on a long list of potential candidates they would sound out for the role, interim Rugby Australia CEO Rob Clarke told News Corp he was not aware of whether that was the case.
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CROWS ON CUSP OF EMBARRASSING RECORD
Adelaide’s winless streak is edging the Crows closer to a pair of unwanted records.
But the cellar-dweller Crows have the perfect opponent in their next match to halt this.
The Crows’ fade out in the backhalf of 2019 under Don Pyke and winless start to 2020 under replacement Matthew Nicks has Adelaide recording nine consecutive losses since last tasting victory on August 3.
This equals the previous worst ever run at West Lakes, between Round 19 in 1999 and Round 5 in 2000 when the Crows fell away after two Premierships and Malcolm Blight resigned as senior coach.
And if the Crows cannot snap this against St Kilda on Monday night at Adelaide Oval they will edge closer to going a full calendar year without tasting a win.
Crows leadership group member Brodie Smith said it felt like an eternity since players last celebrated a win.
“It has been a long time and (we are) definitely missing singing the song,” Smith said.
“We have spoken a bit about the things COVID has taken away that locker room banter, it is hard to sit as a group (now because of restrictions) and singing the song together is probably the one opportunity players have to be together and something footballers enjoy.”
Bolstered by the COVID-19 imposed shutdown of the AFL season earlier this year, the Crows’ streak without a win is approaching the unwanted mark done only once in the AFL era.
Sydney went 415 days between tasting victory over 1992/1993, while expansion clubs GWS and Gold Coast came oh so close to recording the unwanted stat.
The Giants went 364 days without a win from August 4 2012 and August 3 2013 while the Suns remained winless from July 16 2011 to July 14 2012.
But there might be some hope for Crows fans that they won’t get close to their marks.
Not only was their last win in the AFL against Monday night’s opponents St Kilda but Adelaide has not lost to the Saints in their last 10 outings – stretching back to Round 18 in 2011.
After watching rivals Port Adelaide get senior coach Ken Hinkley inside the post-victory huddle following his AFL life membership game against GWS, Smith said Crows players were desperate to get Nicks his first win.
“It might be a bit of an omen for us Saints at home and almost a year later,” he said.
“If we win we may have more people on the inside instead of the outside so it is something we are definitely looking forward to.”
The Crows beat the Saints by 22-points last year, aided by four-goals from Taylor Walker and three from Eddie Betts as he responded to his demotion to the SANFL.
But the Crows conservative tactics in that game – constantly chipping the ball sideways and backwards – had portions of a 39,984 crowd voicing their displeasure at the team.
Betts will be one of seven players from that side who won’t be playing through either being at a different club, injury or retirement.
Bryce Gibbs had 29 disposals in that game and could be in line for his first game since Round 1 because of Rory Sloane’s broken hand.
Originally published as Ex-Adelaide Crows captain Mark Bickley and inaugural coach Graham Cornes ask fans to embrace rebuild as a ‘journey’
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