Growing pains: Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks on where the Crows are at and where he plans to take them
Matthew Nicks says there is nowhere else he would rather be than “hublife” in Queensland as he talks about his winless start, Bryce Gibbs’ future, Mark Ricciuto’s tweets, the dreaded camp and why the Crows know exactly where they are at.
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Of all the expressions Matthew Nicks might use to describe “hublife” in Queensland, “perfect” is not the one that readily comes to mind.
The new Adelaide coach knew the challenges ahead when he took on this delicate list transition yet in every way the introduction has been torrid.
His team is winless and at times has been uncompetitive, he has been forced to drop senior players Bryce Gibbs and Matt Crouch, and the COVID crisis has forced Adelaide to cut a swathe through its football department.
Yet for Nicks, there is nowhere he would rather be than the footy bubble as he works on force-feeding kids games and extracting better performances from his senior players.
He has been in poor working environments with rock-bottom morale - albeit not often - and he says Adelaide’s players are rolling up their sleeves and getting to work.
“This is really perfect considering where society is at,” he tells News Corp, fresh from a takeaway coffee run with players after another training session.
“If we were back in Adelaide we would be back in our houses and this has just been perfect for us. We aren’t winning games on the weekend but what we are doing is performing really well all week. We are sticking tight, we are talking about the “why” without over-doing it, we have the opportunity to get out for dinner, we have large meeting rooms we can sit in and we know we are not playing footy at the level required but we are not far off it. We have a really good young group who is enthused and excited and is sticking fat.”
WHERE IS ADELAIDE AT?
In two decades in the AFL Adelaide has never finished lower than 14th, never fully rebuilt.
The Crows now have a list with a strong established talent but not enough star kids despite taking six top-30 picks in the past two seasons.
In truth they wasted a full year, the players scarred by the 2018 off-season and then given a do-over year in 2019 where it emerged some senior players had actually fallen off a cliff performance-wise.
It means the Crows have no alternative except to play the kids while the stars shine, no time to lose given that 12 months falling behind the AFL’s slite.
Unfortunately the stars have battled so far, exposing those kids.
“When I interviewed for the job a lot of that was discussed, where the club saw themselves. We were aligned as far as the challenges that might present themselves,” says Nicks.
“I feel like we have a strong core group of players but unfortunately if you talk about the first month of performances, we have struggled to play at the level I know we can and that comes back to our intensity.
“We know we are in a transition period. So we are looking to get as many games as we can into guys like Chayce Jones, Ned McHenry Wil Hamill and Andrew McPherson. We haven’t debuted many players recently and we have a gap there, so we want to upskill players and it’s tough for the Adelaide footy club because they haven’t been at this point for a while. The members are so passionate and when you see me after a game, we have been really disappointed but we are going out to win games and at the same time when we review games there are a lot of positives coming through.
“If we play our most experienced players week in and week out then two years might have gone by and we will have a large gap on our list. So we will play those young guys and they will improve out of sight and look at Richmond, Collingwood and Brisbane, teams that have gone through tough times. They are at their peak so it can happen quickly.”
WHERE IS BRYCE GIBBS AT?
Gibbs has another season after this year on excellent money but after being dropped half a dozen times since the start of last year is in a rut.
Nicks will continue working with the former star without guaranteeing him a spot in his side.
“Bryce and I had a really good chat last night. He went from last week being an emergency to this week not being in the squad. People read into it that he isn’t in our best 26 but it’s not like that. He is a really important part of what we are building and we know he can lead on the field.
“We haven’t hid from the fact for Will Hamill to improve we want him to play at the highest level. So we will push Will hard and if he’s playing at the same standard as Bryce he will play. Bryce says he feels like he’s fresh and 18 and ready to go and it’s an open dialogue.
“Again it’s not what it seems externally where Bryce is sitting in the dark not knowing what is going on.”
THE DREADED CAMP
So many of the club’s issues stem from that camp, from Andrew McLeod’s relationship with players to the exodus to the heightened focus on the club’s culture.
Nicks knows exactly what went on and says it will take time for the club’s improvements to be reflected externally.
“Those discussions were had when I got here, mostly around speaking with players and staff. I spoke to as many people as I could before taking up the job.
“You look at us now, we are doing all this really positive stuff off the field and on the track and working through a lot of things. From the outside people are saying, “Oh my God, this place is in a shocking position but it’s not the case. I totally understand people’s perceptions when you don’t have the information and we are 0-4 and haven’t been competitive in a couple of those. We have got work to do to change the perception from an outside point of view.”
MARK RICCIUTO’S TWITTER FEED
Nicks says for all of Mark Ricciuto’s passion in defending Adelaide, the Crows need to be seen to treat players well in the club and on the way out.
“It’s a tough one because ‘Roo’ is so passionate about the club. He feels it cops it harshly and we haven’t spoken around the social media stuff but Roo would understand you can have a passion but we don‘t’ need to get into verbal bashings on social media.
“Part of where we are going is we want to be a destination club, we want for players to come and join us. There is an external view and you talk to players about how we are travelling at 0-4, they would get a real surprise about how strong how culture is, how tight we are, but we want to display that to players around the league and in time we are open to bringing players here. We will go into the draft and have a number of early picks, a number in the first and second round and our thought is to use the draft but you never know what becomes available, what players come up and how they fit into our culture.”
Originally published as Growing pains: Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks on where the Crows are at and where he plans to take them
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