Under-fire Adelaide Crows and football director Mark Ricciuto slammed by AFL greats on Fox Footy’s On The Couch

The Adelaide Crows pile-on has continued with AFL greats Jonathan Brown, Garry Lyon and Nick Riewoldt savaging the club – with football director Mark Ricciuto squarely in their sights.

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AFL greats Garry Lyon, Nick Riewoldt, Jonathan Brown and Gerard Healy have savaged the Adelaide Crows and their hierarchy by taking aim at football director Mark Ricciuto.

Speaking extensively on Fox Footy’s On the Couch, the quartet accused the club of failing to take responsibility for decisions leading to their current demise and said Ricciuto’s decision to engage in Twitter banter with former player Hugh Greenwood on Sunday night tarnished the Crows’ image.

“They’re experiencing for the first time in their proud history an ineptitude that they haven’t seen before,” Lyon said.

“And what they need to do as a football club is accept where they are, and they have a problem with accepting responsibility for incidents that have taken place over the journey this footy club.

“I’ve seen it consistently and I continue to hear it from players, administrators, former coaches, ‘accept where you’re at and then you can address your issues’.”

Brown said: “The outside world (view) is Adelaide has a cultural problem, that’s the perception, Leigh Matthews my old coach used to always say ‘perception is reality’, and it’s so true in this circumstance.

“Whether you’re engaging with a mate and having cheeky Tweets flying back and forth, that just adds to the perception that Adelaide is not a great football club at the moment.”

‘GET OFF TWITTER’

Adelaide football director Mark Ricciuto. Picture: David Mariuz/AAP

Ricciuto addressed the matter briefly on Triple M on Monday morning when he said it was good natured banter with Greenwood but he probably should have stayed out of it.

“He’s a good mate of ours Mark Ricciuto, he works for Fox, but he’s the football director (at Adelaide) and has come under some criticism,” Brown said.

“He engaged in some Tweets with Hughy Greenwood who was magnificent on the weekend.”

Lyon: “I don’t know if this (Tweet) is tongue in cheek or there’s a sting in the tail, if you don’t know the two you think Roo is having a fair crack and Hugh has taken exception and gone back.”

Riewoldt: “Isn’t it irrelevant? In the context of the week the football club had had, in particular Roo, you’ve got to question the wisdom of engaging in a Twitter back and forth don’t you?”

Lyon: “Why engage in the back and forth because all it does is raise the question ‘oh, part of Adelaide’s problem is they just worry about the number and not the quality of the number because the Hugh Greenwood comeback has a sting in the tail, he’s saying exactly that ‘don’t worry if you’re getting 35 or 36 (touches), worry about what you’re doing with it and how affective you’re going to be.”

The Twitter stoush came days after Ricciuto defended the club’s ability to retain players by naming those who had left since 2017 and revealing what they were now earning at their new clubs.

Crows chairman Rob Chapman said he loved Ricciuto’s passion and willingness to defend the club but he should not have gone into specific detail.

‘LISTEN TO DUNSTALL’

Lyon compared Ricciuto’s comments with Jason Dunstall who was Hawthorn’s football director before leading an external review at the Crows last year.

Lyon: “Let me just say this, there’s a bloke that over there late last year who was a footy director at a footy club who worked in the media and we didn’t hear boo from him.

“His name was Jason Dunstall. Jason Dunstall went over to Adelaide last year, I worked with Jason for six, seven, eight years when he was in that position (at Hawthorn) and you could not get anything out of him.

“Win, lose or draw he was consistent and stoic and gave you nothing. Wouldn’t that be the message he has given to that footy club?”

‘RE-DEPLOY THE TROOPS’

Garry Lyon wants to see a new-look Crows midfield this week. Picture: Sarah Reed.

Riewoldt believes Adelaide’s senior players would be embarrassed with the way things have unravelled since the 2017 grand final.

“The senior players have been so close ... and now we’re not competing for premierships, what is my motivation to go out and prepare as strongly as I always have,” he said.

At 0-3 and on the bottom of the ladder after hidings from Port Adelaide and Gold Coast in consecutive weeks, Lyon urged coach Matthew Nicks to both swing the axe and “re-deploy” the troops.

“I saw the first step, at the start of the last quarter the centre square set-up read McHenry, Jones, Keays, there was no Crouch, Crouch, Sloane which has been a consistent theme of the footy club for a long time,” he said.

“That’s no knock on those three but you just can’t go to the well with the same players. You’ve got to re-deploy.

“Don’t blame Tex and Fogarty - they are half-forward-flankers being asked to play full forward and centre-half-forward (but) Himmelberg and Frampton the 200cm blokes they got into their side - play them.”

Gerard Healy had a dire warning for Bryce Gibbs’ future after 266 games.

“If Bryce Gibbs cannot get into that football team then his career as an AFL footballer is finished,” he said.

“If you’re not in that team, your career is basically at the end.”

‘WHAT HAVE THEY BROUGHT IN?’

Matt Crouch stares blankly after the Showdown loss. Picture: Sarah Reed.

The panel also addressed the talent drain which has not been replaced at West Lakes in recent years.

“These are the blokes they’ve traded into this footy club the last five or six years - Frampton, Stengle, Gibbs, Gibson, Seedsman, Menzel, Curtly Hampton,” Lyon said.

Riewoldt then listed those who had left.

“I know which side of that list I’d like to have,” he said.

Lyon said at least the Crows will go to this year’s national draft in a strong position,

“And they will have a good hand, the hard thing is we don’t know which of the talented kids coming through,” he said.

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Originally published as Under-fire Adelaide Crows and football director Mark Ricciuto slammed by AFL greats on Fox Footy’s On The Couch