Thread by @danielhead7

I've spent some time analysing where things are going wrong for the Crows. School holidays means a bit of extra time. So, here goes:
Very long 🧵👇

cc: @Cornesy12 @GraemeGoodings @penbo @WGoodings @SensibleCrow @VardyMagic @timmy_silvers

#weflyasone #adelaidefc #gocrows

I’ll start with the people in the jobs and then focus on some of the puzzling decisions made. None of this is personal in any way - it’s merely my observations of people making sub-par decisions or appointments and not getting called out for it.

I also acknowledge this is entirely an outsider’s view, albeit one formed in a time when the Club treated members with a level of contempt by telling us what they thought we needed to know rather than what we wanted to know.

The obvious starting point is Mark Ricciuto. This one actually hurts because he’s arguably the greatest Crow and I remember the hype about him coming on board.

He can clearly identify talent: Walsh and Pyke, for example.

In 2014, Rucci called Ricciuto a kingmaker and mused whether Roo’s friend Justin Reid would come back from Melbourne as CEO: bit.ly/3PfzmQK

Of course Reid came back at the end of 2014 - as predicted - but as list manager.

A meeting with Fagan and Noble piqued his interest. Apparently no proper recruitment campaign unfolded. bit.ly/3nU0wkA

Ricciuto has repeatedly backed Reid in despite calls for a review into recruitment coming from Bickley, Graham Cornes, Malcolm Blight and literally everyone I follow on Twitter: bit.ly/3IrvKcj

Chapman claimed that Reid’s management put the Crows in a grand final: bit.ly/3uFfrTy

This isn’t entirely true; he was there from 2015… Noble built the team that put them to the GF.

Noble is now available 🤔🧐

There’s a whole other thread I could write on Burton and Hass, with Hass running our high performance program with just a Bachelor of Human Movement behind him.

No Masters, no PhD but 10 months experience at a uni and some experience…

…working under Brett Burton at Brisbane!

So it made perfect sense to just employ him in Adelaide, despite Brisbane struggling at the time.

(This is head-exploding stuff!)

Soon after this time, we brought in in Saunders AFTER HE WAS A CONSULTANT IN 2018 USING KANGATECH!

Remember all of our injuries in 2018?

Well, we employed the consultant who was working with us on the new technology that decimated our team. bit.ly/3PiSo8R

Each of these decisions, of course, has been overseen by the Kingmaker himself, the Football Director, Mark Ricciuto. The Dunstall-Pavlich review made Burton and Campo scapegoats, but somehow the CEO who *SAT IN ON THE REVIEW* (🤯) escaped scrutiny - as did Roo.

I’d forgotten adding Ben Hart to this list as our forwards coach after Teague left. Collingwood let Hart go, and he had a year out of the AFL - I wonder if it’s because there weren’t jobs for him?

It seems that the Crows found one for Roo’s old friend…?

Then there’s Godden who was let go as our midfield coach (after we were absolutely deplorable in the mids during his tenure) and reappointed as SANFL coach. Query whether AFC ran a recruitment process for this role?

But who could forget Roo’s comments: “supporters should back our people in and if they don’t, well maybe they don’t need to barrack for the footy club any more”. He did apologise after the backlash: bit.ly/3azd4uD

Turning back to some of the key list management decisions that Reid and Ogilvie have made. I temper this by noting that hindsight is an exact science - and it’s not as bad as some make out - but there’s some pretty awful decisions here.

2015 saw Milera and Doedee drafted in the top 17 picks - a good return for Reid’s first outing especially because Doedee was a a shock selection bit.ly/3ICNpxF predicted to go in the 40s!

The only non-Academy picks Adelaide could have taken instead of Milera were C Curnow and D Rioli. Ryan Burton went at 19.

Milera’s wretched injury run hasn’t helped.

Overall, a decent return.

2016 was a disaster - blamed in retrospect on Pyke (bit.ly/3Itg6x2) - in taking Gallucci (pick 16) before Todd Marshall (16), Jarrod Berry (17), Powell-Pepper (18) and English (19).

This one is infuriating and has cost us dearly.

In 2017, Reid effectively traded Cameron to Brisbane for Fogarty’s pick.

This was considered a good result for the Crows at the time, given Cameron was leaving regardless.

Cameron even thought the Crows overpaid! Small win to Reid. bit.ly/3auX5hb

Cameron said “I didn’t think I was going to play my best footy at Adelaide at that time, I had my exit review and I said ‘I’m just not happy here, there’s nothing you guys can do to make me change my mind and make me stay’.”

An indictment?

We know that 2017 was also the disastrous Gibbs trade - although I don’t blame Reid for this one. It seems Fagan insisted on it and, from the outside, seemed a perfect time to go “all in” for the missing piece: bit.ly/3Itg6x2

But when they didn’t do it in 2016 (which might have been the difference in the GF?) it seems crazy to do it in 2017 - unless we won the flag in 2018, in which case it’s a master stroke. Clearly we didn’t!

There hasn’t been enough scrutiny on:

- why it was done; and
- why it failed so spectacularly.

It’s either poor culture, coaching, or lack of due diligence on the part of the recruiters.

Gibbs just seemed to lose his football talent, like in the movie Space Jam.

Was his body sound? What about his mentality? Would be work in with what Pyke wanted? Clearly Pyke had little time for him.

And NO ONE seems to have been held accountable! 😡🤯

2018 is the one that gets a lot of attention but one I argue we didn’t do *too* badly in. Jones at 9 and McHenry at 16 when Butters, Caldwell, Quaynor, Jordan Clark were on the table. Here’s why it’s not all bad:

I’ve reviewed most phantom drafts from that time and most had Jones around the mark where we took him. Twomey had him at 14 bit.ly/3ICNpxF, ESPN at 16 bit.ly/3azB6Wb, Fox at 9 bit.ly/2yZprtY and the Roar at 23.

Similarly, most had Ned around that mark and if you look at who came after Ned, there aren’t any really obvious stuff ups like in 2016.

Obviously, with the benefit of hindsight, you’d do things much differently and take Butters, Clark, Duursma, Rowbottom, etc and Jones was taken 4-5 picks earlier than most predicted.

Has development stagnated? McHenry was top 10 BnF last year.

I LOVE his effort.

But effort isn’t enough.

Jones has taken a while but is showing signs, albeit not to the standard of his fellow top 10 draftees.

2019, however, is a different story…

This one, like 2016, really hurts. The Crows had a golden opportunity and took McAsey at 6. He looked devastated on the night, and it’s been an omen for the last few years. Worth noting, too, that we had 4 and traded down to 6! 😩

Apparently it raised a lot of eyebrows amongst fellow recruiters, and left Serong, Henry, Green, Pickett, Day, Weightman and Georgiades on the table. Mind boggling stuff - but the question needs to be asked whether it’s drafting or development?

So few of our draftees seem to come on as expected - I don’t have much hard evidence for this but if one considers the time taken with Fog, Jones, McAsey etc, it seems easy to find ample players taken around them in the draft who have developed quicker.

We see week after week of mediocre SANFL form from highly-touted youngsters.

The point is this: it’s either poor drafting (including picking kids without required motivation) or poor development (including club staff, facilities and resources).

**There is no alternative**.

It’s interesting that Charlie Cameron said “I had some good people around me … at Adelaide … but there was more opportunity footy-wise to take my game to another level (elsewhere).”

Is this the case for other top draftees? It would vindicate Ogilvie and Reid, if so.

E.g., Murray and Frampton get games ahead of McAsey. Nothing wrong with this per se, but it suggests there’s a problem with:

- development or
- culture

That is, on average a top 20 pick should be playing more than rookies or low picks. This doesn’t seem to happen at the Crows. We have more than the average lower picks making progress, however. Do our recruiters/developers work better with roughies?

This isn’t Fisher, Chayse and Ned’s fault either - they seem like awesome kids.

But viewed in light of all our first round picks of late, it’s pretty damning.

Several years of consistent misses in the top 20 sets you back a decade.

As a member not privy to the inner workings of the club, I’m now confused by selection - as most of my Twitter contemporaries are. Selections seem to be from a coach who doesn’t know whether he’s playing to win or to develop players.

Crouch might be unfairly maligned at present, but is a good example of the frustration because every CBA or minute he plays on the ground, takes away from precious minutes for Hately or Schoenberg.

So, the question is: what are Nicks’ KPIs that the Board are holding him to? Are they pressuring him for a win, or to develop the kids? In either metric, he can’t be doing well. If it’s creating a culture that engenders a sense of camaraderie, he’s probably going well.

For all the failings set out above, we’ve had some good trades such as Seedsman and Dawson. Reid has also been brave in moving on Betts, Jacobs and Jenkins (although not before over-paying for JJ with a five year deal which the Crows paid for at Geelong).

Reid was similarly brave in moving on the likes of Keath and Greenwood. These guys would be valuable now - but won’t be in 3-4 years. It was a brave and the correct move in my view.

So what’s gone right? Getting key assistants around Nicks to support him has been a big tick, but the frustration for supporters is not being able to see experience of Burns and VB translate on the field.

We are told that Nicks was the most under-resourced coach in the land, working at one of the richest clubs! bit.ly/3IrvKcj However, now this has been addressed. Personally, I’d be happy to pay the soft cap tax if it meant bolstering the department!

The Crows have brought in some very promising staff such as Burgess and and seem to have moved away from the “Boys Club” mentality in recent appointments. There’s clearly still a way to go in this regard yet.

A huge win for the club and also restoring faith in members would be to explore Noble returning.

He built a list to get the Crows to the 2017 GF and turned Brisbane’s fortunes around.

Above all else, my view is members want to see progress, a plan, and accountability. I don’t see how that can happen while Ricciuto is in charge.

Reid is a hard one - there are successes and busts like any list manager would have, but as we approach a decade of him in the job it feels like the busts outweigh the successes?

I haven’t spent the time to see how often other clubs renew list managers (and under which circumstances) but it would be interesting to see whether the only area untouched since 2017 is due for a refresh at @adelaidefc

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You guys might appreciate 🤝