Toast CROWS get their man Don Pyke named Adelaide coach

[Alex99]

What happened to the announcement crow1980

 

[Elite Crow]

Like i said i got it wrong i passed on what was told to be good mail.
Any how we are aloud to get things wrong.
I am can at least admit that.

Do we bump this post for today's "announcement"?

 

[FR0GGY]

Come on crow1980 I was prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt early on, but it's fast running out.

 

[Elite Crow]

Come on crow1980 I was prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt early on, but it's fast running out.

It hasn't run out

 

[MRB37]

Do we bump this post for today's "announcement"?

Was there supposed to be one today?

 

[Geoffa32]

Announcement today!!

You should have stopped after the Menzel trade.

The carpet bombing approach to claiming "exclusives" does not work for Rooch either.

Sent from my HTC_0P6B6 using Tapatalk

 

[Sanders]

Red horses
Training horses

Just sayin'

 

[Stiffy_18]

Sounds like bullshit to me!

 

[FR0GGY]

Red horses
Training horses

Just sayin'

Different styles I reckon

 

[I Lost My Keays]

I hope we get Kevin Rudd as an assistant.

I think he will give a fair shake of the sauce bottle

 

[Sanders]

Different styles I reckon

Same look at me, look at me, gypsy fortune teller bullshit

 

[Pugsley]

It hasn't run out

I hate when my batting partner ran me out

 

[Pugsley]

Same look at me, look at me, gypsy fortune teller bullshit

 

[FR0GGY]

It hasn't run out

im a tolerant person

 

[MRB37]

DON Pyke won two AFL premierships, two WAFL flags, two best-and-fairests, was a state junior cricketer and knows his way around a table tennis table.

And he plays golf off scratch. Of course he does.

Some guys are just good at everything — the sort of blokes you love to hate — but with Pyke you’d never know it and those who do know him say he’s very hard not to like.

“You only hate them if they boast and throw it in your face,” his former West Coast teammate Glen Jakovich told The Advertiser.

“But he’s a silent assassin Don, he’s very quiet and very humble.”

According to Jakovich who played in the 1992 and 1994 premierships with Adelaide’s new coach, Pyke will have a beer but only when the time is right.

“He’s not your footballer stereotype but he’s a man’s man,” Jakovich said.

“He knew the right time to have a beer with the boys but he was never there at 4am or anything like that.”

As another former Eagle Karl Langdon will attest, if you’re digging for dirt or any wild stories about Pyke then you’d better have a good shovel.

“He wasn’t an extrovert like me,” Langdon said.

“He wasn’t a party animal, he’s not the sort of bloke who got his nose dirty, he was a clean skin.

“He played his role in the team and we all had roles with (Mick) Malthouse as coach.

“From a tactical perspective he’s a student of the game. He’s a deep thinker, he doesn’t do things on a whim, he plans and prepares.”

That was Pyke the footballer and remains Pyke the bloke. Quiet and unassuming who never beat his chest but always did his job, who rarely raises his voice but is said to be a great motivator.

And the other thing about Pyke which you wouldn’t necessarily assume just by looking at him is he is tough.

The 1992 AFL Grand Final was barely two minutes old when Pyke collided with Gary Ablett Snr’s elbow and left the MCG on a stretcher.

He didn’t want to go off and he resisted the trainers’ attempts to help. But unable to stand he had no choice and it appeared his day was over.

“He was knocked out — he didn’t know what planet he was on if you talk to the doctors about it,” Jakovich recalls.

As Pyke was carried from the ground, Langdon says he remonstrated with Ablett and got a “big chunk” of the Geelong superstar’s hair.

“He elbowed Don straight in the head and he was concussed — these days you wouldn’t be allowed back on,” Langdon said.

But within five minutes Pyke was jogging along the boundary and within 10 minutes he returned to the field to resume his job on Geelong dangerman Garry Hocking who he kept to 21 touches as West Coast became the first interstate club to win the flag.

“He never looked intimidating on the football field but that was one of the most courageous things I’ve seen in my time at West Coast,” Jakovich said.

“He went back on and shut down Buddha Hocking and became one of the best taggers in the competition who could also get the ball himself.”

Pyke is also intelligent and his playing career as impressive as his business smarts which included working as an accountant while playing for the Eagles and later working in the oil and gas industry.

Gerard Neesham was coaching Claremont in 1987 when Pyke moved from colts to the league team and never looked back, and Neesham said his intelligence and commitment was reflected in his game.

“He was very, very professional,” Neesham said.

“And talented — he could kick both feet and was a committed sportsman.

“He was always quite serious but the business of AFL footy is very serious and he’s probably a good fit today rather than the knockabout type of coach from years ago.

“He will be a very good role model (for the playing group).”

That sentiment is echoed by Jakovich.

“He’s extremely intelligent and very calculated, he has great composure and he was never a ranter or a raver,” Jakovich said.

“I remember from our playing days he always had a philosophical outlook on things when some guys would get a bit tense.”

It’s no surprise then that Pyke can think his way around a golf course.

Even with a bung shoulder which forced his early retirement from football in 1996, Pyke got his golf handicap as low as +1, won the Cottesloe club championship in 2008 and 2011 and in 2013 helped the club break a 35-year drought by winning the WA pennant title.

Cottesloe Golf Club chief executive Troy O’Hern describes Pyke the golfer as very long off the tee and “pretty competitive obviously”.

“He’s very calculating and thinks his way around the course,” O’Hern said.

“He’s a very good match-player and never gives up and that’s why he was good with the pennant team (which he captained).

That sentiment is echoed by Jakovich.

“He’s extremely intelligent and very calculated, he has great composure and he was never a ranter or a raver,” Jakovich said.

“I remember from our playing days he always had a philosophical outlook on things when some guys would get a bit tense.”

It’s no surprise then that Pyke can think his way around a golf course.

Even with a bung shoulder which forced his early retirement from football in 1996, Pyke got his golf handicap as low as +1, won the Cottesloe club championship in 2008 and 2011 and in 2013 helped the club break a 35-year drought by winning the WA pennant title.

Cottesloe Golf Club chief executive Troy O’Hern describes Pyke the golfer as very long off the tee and “pretty competitive obviously”.

“He’s very calculating and thinks his way around the course,” O’Hern said.

“He’s a very good match-player and never gives up and that’s why he was good with the pennant team (which he captained).

“He revved them up a bit and was quite motivational. And he was good with the young guys because a pennant team is a bit of a mix of younger and more mature guys.”

In many ways that’s not unlike the Crows side Pyke takes charge of which has Scott Thompson turning 33 in March and Jake Lever who is still a teenager.

Adelaide won’t be the first side Pyke will have coached in his own right.

Before being lured back to West Coast as an assistant to Adam Simpson in 2014, he was an assistant coach at Adelaide under Neil Craig and senior coach at Claremont in the first year it was aligned to the Eagles in the AFL.

Working alongside former teammates Michael Brennan and Tony Evans, Pyke led Claremont to fifth in 1999 with an 11-9 record and third in 2000 with 12-6.

“Most weeks we were playing 17 Eagles who had 1-10 WAFL games experience,” says Todd Shimmon who was runner, football manager and CEO at Claremont during that time.

“He brought the AFL model to the WAFL competition and got a good result with what he had.

“He’s very analytical. The three of them (Pyke, Brennan and Evans) would spend three hours every Thursday on selection and he drove that.

“He would have 10 different plans for ‘what if this happens or what if that happens’.”

Langdon says Pyke is big on skills so don’t be surprised to see the footballs out from day one of Adelaide’s pre-season campaign.

And while some may see it as daunting taking over as coach of the Crows who made a semi-final this year — rather than of a club starting from a lower base like Essendon or Carlton — Shimmon said it would only make Pyke more determined.

“It won’t faze him, he’ll love that, he’s very driven,” Shimmon said.

Adelaide took three months to find its new coach after the tragic passing of Phil Walsh in July and the extensive process eventually pointed to Pyke — a respected, methodical and intelligent person who walked the walk as a player and has now taken the leap of faith to talk the talk as a coach.

But as anyone who knows Pyke will tell you, don’t expect any bold statements coming out of West Lakes this summer because his actions have always spoken much louder than words.

 

[dogs105]

What time is the announcement? Weekend??

 

[Paladin]

Are we going a coach short or is Matty Clarke getting a promotion?

Nice to hear Pyke is very big on skill work.

 

[Mr_Moogle]

I'm bloody happy Pyke keeps his mouth shut. Maybe he realises that actions speak louder than words.

 

[Lawrst]

The part that worried me slightly, he doesn't do things on a whim, he plans and prepares.

All well and good until it's Franklin and massie.


Obviously too early to tell and he gets the benifit of the doubt.
Maybe its just the life of a crows supporter to this point that makes me worried about this stuff

 

[pjcrows]

The part that worried me slightly, he doesn't do things on a whim, he plans and prepares.

All well and good until it's Franklin and massie.


Obviously too early to tell and he gets the benifit of the doubt.
Maybe its just the life of a crows supporter to this point that makes me worried about this stuff

There's only one bloke on the planet who would play Massie on Franklin.

 

[Doctor B]

The part that worried me slightly, he doesn't do things on a whim, he plans and prepares.

All well and good until it's Franklin and massie.


Obviously too early to tell and he gets the benifit of the doubt.
Maybe its just the life of a crows supporter to this point that makes me worried about this stuff

"He would have 10 different plans for ‘what if this happens or what if that happens’.”
Sounds a bit more tactical than leaving Massie on Franklin.

 

[dylan123]

The part that worried me slightly, he doesn't do things on a whim, he plans and prepares.

All well and good until it's Franklin and massie.


Obviously too early to tell and he gets the benifit of the doubt.
Maybe its just the life of a crows supporter to this point that makes me worried about this stuff

Part from the above:

“He’s very analytical. The three of them (Pyke, Brennan and Evans) would spend three hours every Thursday on selection and he drove that.

“He would have 10 different plans for ‘what if this happens or what if that happens’.”

If anything, I'd be questioning his ability to fire players up when they're not preforming as expecting because the above paints the picture of someone that's very calm and always thinking rather then someone that's outspoken. I personally have no issues with this as he'll be thinking about what needs to be done and relaying that, just relies on the buy in from the players so they've got the belief in him to listen to what he has to say.

Will be interesting to watch to see how he gets us to respond when we do come out underwhelming (which hopefully isn't too often!).

 

[Ozzie]

Any news on Aker yet?

 

[relapse]

The part that worried me slightly, he doesn't do things on a whim, he plans and prepares.

All well and good until it's Franklin and massie.


Obviously too early to tell and he gets the benifit of the doubt.
Maybe its just the life of a crows supporter to this point that makes me worried about this stuff

He actually reminds me a little of Neil Craig, scarily I've already, in what little I have heard from Pyke, heard him mention learning experiences and improvement.

Hopefully that is where the similarities stop.

 

[Pugsley]

Any news on Aker yet?

He's doing a handstand and juggling act.