Crows coach Matthew Nicks knows his assistants are doing it tough but they’re sticking together and staying flexible

Crows coach Matthew Nicks is sticking by his assistant coaches during a tough time as the club waits to know the full extent of the financial impact of COVID-19.

Crows coach Matthew Nicks surrounded by his players during team photo day. Picture: SARAH REED

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Adelaide Crows coach Matthew Nicks admits his assistant coaches – whose jobs are in limbo as the AFL wades through the financial crisis brought on by the COVID-19 shutdown – are doing it tough while they wait to know if, rather than when, they can return to work.

The AFL has asked the 18 clubs to cut soft cap expenditure from $9.7 million to $8.7 million this year, and again to $6.7 million by the start of 2021 and Nicks said he was asking for more direction from the league as to what the soft cap would look like moving forward.

But there’s one area of the footy department he doesn’t envisage shrinking: player welfare.

“If there are reasonably steep cuts in the soft cap and you’re going to have to take staff away, the key comes back to what’s best for our playing group and what allows them to progress and develop as people as well as footballers and straight away you look at welfare and player development,” Nicks said.

“That’s still a really key area to our game and it’s important we don’t take any of our resources out of there.

“We’ll look at how we structure our coaching department up. Analytics? How much stays in that area? Because that’s been an area that’s had a fair bit of commentary around it over the last two or three years as far as how many computers are in the box on game day.”

Matthew Nicks with some of his football assistants during a pre-season match. Picture: Sarah Reed.

As the waiting game continues, Nicks was aware of how the uncertainty was affecting his assistants.

“They’re doing it quite tough at this point, but we’re sticking around each other,” he said.

“We’ve got the opportunity to catch up over media platforms, we’ll ‘Zoom’ each other and continually talk about where things are at, we’re talking about game plan, we’re discussing how best to look after our players.

“But how do we look after our coaches? Because they’re in a really tough spot at the moment.

“Going forward, it’s a matter of us staying close, that’s what I’ve been doing, just talking to them constantly and giving them updates … to support them through what is a tough time.”

And they are still analysing vision together and conducting line meetings on a week-to-week basis.

“Round one’s (three-point loss to Sydney), there’s no hiding we want to do a fair bit of work on our centre bounce, so we’ve got a group getting together tonight on Zoom to get that done.

“From a coaching point of view, we’re still pushing around magnets and talking Xs and Os and coming up with what is the best way for us to perform.”

Nicks hoped any cuts in coaching staff wouldn’t drop the standard of the game.

Crows coach Matthew Nicks during the Round 1 AFL match between Adelaide and Sydney at Adelaide Oval on March 21, 2020. Picture: AAP Image/David Mariuz.

“We may not see as many coaches going forward, but it’s a tough one, because we hope then that won’t affect the standard of the game moving forward, that we’re able to keep the standard of the game where it is now which is a pretty high standard,” he said.

Nicks said overall, the key to getting through the coronavirus crisis was flexibility, which included considering the possibility of a “Hub concept” that could see football resume with teams put in quarantined environments across the country to play round-robin matches.

“Our players, our coaches, our people, our members, our supporters: we want to play football and we want to do whatever we can do to that,” he said.

“I’m in favour of whatever’s best for the league, we’re flexible on whatever it takes for us to play footy at this point.”

Crows coach Matthew Nicks in action. Picture: Sarah Reed.

The first-year senior coach described spending the past few weeks at home as “amazing” because he’d been given the rare chance to spend quality time with his children, but acknowledged the longer the lockdown continued the more challenges would arise not just for his players but for the entire community.

He praised how his chargers were handling their time in isolation and keeping their bodies as fit as possible.

Originally published as Crows coach Matthew Nicks knows his assistants are doing it tough but they’re sticking together and staying flexible