Opinion Matthew Nicks: Adelaide's Coach (Part 2) - Full Support of the Board

[Trigger13]

We all know what’s going to happen.

Every time it looks as though Nicks’ position is ‘untenable’, we’ll scrape a famous victory at home, ensuring the happy clappers buy him another month. Rinse and repeat for two years with guys like Nank still rotting away in the twos and the midfield unchanged.


First famous win: Melb, Gather Round.

Just you watch.

 

[Carn The Texan]

We all know what’s going to happen.

Every time it looks as though Nicks’ position is ‘untenable’, we’ll scrape a famous victory at home, ensuring the happy clappers buy him another month. Rinse and repeat for two years with guys like Nank still rotting away in the twos and the midfield unchanged.


First famous win: Melb, Gather Round.

Just you watch.

We don't have the midfield (against Gawn, Petracca and Oliver) to provide supply to our non-existent goal scorers, and we don't have the defenders to cover Melbourne's forward line (admittedly their major deficiency). I've got us losing by 40+ having seen nothing this year that would convince me we will turn up to play for more than 10 minutes tops.

 

[relapse]

I think the Showdown will more than likely be the tipping point for the happy campers.

A bad loss in the Showdown and he'll be a dead man walking.

 

[Kenny Dee]

I think the Showdown will more than likely be the tipping point for the happy campers.

A bad loss in the Showdown and he'll be a dead man walking.

Better not take that long. Zip and 5 when the club thought they’d just walk into finals is enough surely. I’ve had more than enough now

 

[El Doederino]

Nicks signs two-year extension

Nicks will remain at the helm as the Crows push to return to finals

www.afc.com.au

Ha ha ha

Good one Adelaide Crows. You got me.

 

[Rotayjay]

Our struggles without Tex playing (or playing without firing) remind me of Gold Coast struggling to win without Gary Ablett. Yes Tex has been our best forward for years and we knew his ageing would cause issues, but our current inability to score is much deeper than that.

A good coach wouldn't allow an AFL side to become offensively impotent even when its best forward is not kicking goals. It was our one strength, and we look a bottom-4 side now that our forward line is not functioning.

 

[Crow_68]

Media turning the heat up! Even though it’s Barrett, this is a good thing.

 

[TubbsFarquhar]

Graeme Cornes on this topic was unbearable. “It’s exactly why we signed him, can you imagine if we were 0-3 and hadn’t signed him”

 

[1970crow]

Our struggles without Tex playing (or playing without firing) remind me of Gold Coast struggling to win without Gary Ablett. Yes Tex has been our best forward for years and we knew his ageing would cause issues, but our current inability to score is much deeper than that.

A good coach wouldn't allow an AFL side to become offensively impotent even when its best forward is not kicking goals. It was our one strength, and we look a bottom-4 side now that our forward line is not functioning.

Playing him as injured as he is makes the problem worse. He's currently a liability, so we're worse than if we were playing short one player. Interestingly, Tex average TOG in 2023 was 83, with a 90% and 92% being the only games in the 90s. This year it was 91% against Cats and then 98% against Freo. So despite being clearly hampered and playing poorly, he's choosing to stay out there more. Who is managing this, guru Burgess?

 

[Rory Walkerfield]

Do you think you could get any worse results if you deliberately tried to sabotage the teams performance?

Like that’s how bad the game plan is that this **** knuckle is rolling out.

 

[GreyCrow]

Media turning the heat up! Even though it’s Barrett, this is a good thing.

I thought the noise was meant to stop

 

[Rory Walkerfield]

Media turning the heat up! Even though it’s Barrett, this is a good thing.

The annoying thing with the media assessments is that all they do is point out that we’ve gone from #1 to #18 for scoring.

They fail to point out the underlying issues:

• shitty slow defensive game plan
• no overlap run to cut through the lines
• slow plodding midfielders
• minimal development of any “impact” midfielders: Rachele and Peds are right there waiting for an extended midfield run. Compare this to clubs like Melbourne (Windsor) and Brisbane (Fletcher) who are giving first round draftees full games around the ball in their first and second seasons

 

[1970crow]

Did Nicks really believe that he could maintain scoring capacity whilst reverting to the cowardly chip, chip, slow forward movement system? And nobody else thought to mention the obvious trade-off?

 

[Rory Walkerfield]

Did Nicks really believe that he could maintain scoring capacity whilst reverting to the cowardly chip, chip, slow forward movement system? And nobody else thought to mention the obvious trade-off?

Our midfield coach is VB.

In AFC tradition, the bloke played 100 more games than he should have. We made him captain FFS!

One of the original permeators of the senior player entitlement culture that has infected this footy club.

So no, they’re all too focussed on back slapping and maintaining the status quo to properly analyse the implications of their moronic game plan.

 

[Ham]

The annoying thing with the media assessments is that all they do is point out that we’ve gone from #1 to #18 for scoring.

They fail to point out the underlying issues:

• shitty slow defensive game plan
• no overlap run to cut through the lines
• slow plodding midfielders
• minimal development of any “impact” midfielders: Rachele and Peds are right there waiting for an extended midfield run. Compare this to clubs like Melbourne (Windsor) and Brisbane (Fletcher) who are giving first round draftees full games around the ball in their first and second seasons

yeah I reckon King says it better in this article (not so much Montagna)

‘Something has to change’: Great challenges ‘basic’ Crows again amid looming Tex concern

‘So basic, so quickly’: Great slams Crows again as ‘stark’ issue exposed ... a big problem looms

www.foxsports.com.au

 

[Rory Walkerfield]

yeah I reckon King says it better in this article (not so much Montagna)

‘Something has to change’: Great challenges ‘basic’ Crows again amid looming Tex concern

‘So basic, so quickly’: Great slams Crows again as ‘stark’ issue exposed ... a big problem looms

www.foxsports.com.au

King is bang on. This is predominantly self inflicted.

Montagna is an idiot. Teams weren’t trying to stop us scoring last year? Gimme a break.

Problem is Nicks is such an arrogant all knowing campaigner that he will double down on this dumbass game plan to show everyone that he’s right and they’re wrong.

 

[GROTTO]

The Adelaide Football Club is effectively in a holding pattern till at least 2027 maybe longer when/if we get a new coach.

By then we may realistically may have to engage in a 2nd rebuild. This is severely exacerbated by the entry of Tasmania, not too dissimilar of the time when we went through a rebuild with the Suns entering the competition.

 

[1970crow]

Our midfield coach is VB.

In AFC tradition, the bloke played 100 more games than he should have. We made him captain FFS!

One of the original permeators of the senior player entitlement culture that has infected this footy club.

So no, they’re all too focussed on back slapping and maintaining the status quo to properly analyse the implications of their moronic game plan.

The change is an all of field strategy though. VB just ensures his group are playing their part in the overall strategies set by the entire coaching group. Nicks the leader of the group, so is ultimately responsible.

 

[George Kramer]

The change is an all of field strategy though. VB just ensures his group are playing their part in the overall strategies set by the entire coaching group. Nicks the leader of the group, so is ultimately responsible.

And Burns who is now the new ball movement coach

 

[1970crow]

King is bang on. This is predominantly self inflicted.

Montagna is an idiot. Teams weren’t trying to stop us scoring last year? Gimme a break.

Problem is Nicks is such an arrogant all knowing campaigner that he will double down on this dumbass game plan to show everyone that he’s right and they’re wrong.

It's the players' fault, Nicks has been clear and correct that we needed to be a bit better defensively. All we needed was slow, structured, risk-free, flawless ball movement forward whilst maintaining the required directness, element of risk and speed of movement to continue scoring as we did last year. That the players haven't been able to marry the two when not working against cones or possibles can't be on the coaching group.

 

[1970crow]

King is bang on. This is predominantly self inflicted.

Montagna is an idiot. Teams weren’t trying to stop us scoring last year? Gimme a break.

Problem is Nicks is such an arrogant all knowing campaigner that he will double down on this dumbass game plan to show everyone that he’s right and they’re wrong.

Only a couple of months to proof that they were right and backslaps all around. An 80 point flogging of Eagles at home, extensions and pay rises for everyone.

 

[1970crow]

And Burns who is now the new ball movement coach

Geez Scotty, that's piss-poor timing.

 

[AFC979810]

Nicks has also capitalized (for him) on an dream injury run over his first 4 seasons.

Now after a lot of offseason hype we are hunted and he is without his first choice players Murray, Sloane, Thilthorpe, Milera, Butts and things are looking very different. We also have injuries to Schoenberg (fringe) and lost depth players Doedee and McAdam from that 2023 side.

How has the tactical genius responded? Exactly like we thought he would - defensively. Nicks would be the best person to play in Chess. He thinks and responds one move at a time.

 

[BigBoSS_Riot]

And Burns who is now the new ball movement coach

Well that would explain quite a bit...

Back in the days of the Geelong dynasty, quite a bit was said about their heavy corridor usage. But the team who was the exact opposite was Collingwood - they very consistently went boundary side. So in the latter stages of his playing career, this is what he would be learning from. I wonder if West Coast were doing this from 2008-13, or Collingwood from 2014-17, or Hawthorn from 2018-20. These are the places he was an assistant coach before we employed him.

Back in his playing days, I don't think there was really a set answer, so teams could go either way. But right now, corridor is king. Geelong and Collingwood have pretty clearly proven that across the last couple of years. The two teams who utilise the corridor the least are Brisbane (0 wins) and West Coast (0 wins), and I imagine we're not far behind them.

 

[Jars458]

The Adelaide Football Club is effectively in a holding pattern till at least 2027 maybe longer when/if we get a new coach.

By then we may realistically may have to engage in a 2nd rebuild. This is severely exacerbated by the entry of Tasmania, not too dissimilar of the time when we went through a rebuild with the Suns entering the competition.

No it’s much worse than that. Our board and administration has been C grade at best for almost our entire existence. The acceptance of mediocrity is a disease at AFC. How is Roo still there? Olsen a shining example of mediocrity and entitlement. There’s no mechanism to fix it either.