Strategy Rowey admits the club wasn’t honest at the presser

[Sanders]

There's a few book burner types around here

What students?

 

[asdfasd]

Glad to see Tredrea calling out Pyke for his comments following the Grand Final. True leaders accept that the buck stops with them, and ask what they could have done better, they don't hang their subordinates out to dry. Pyke totally lost me at that point. He's not a leader.

 

[Elite Crow]

It’s the hysteria about it all!

Jesus wept !

We are the laughing stock with whoever did that e mail !

We’re copping what Essendon copped from the media for way way less. Tex has been in their sights for months. Every criticism - measured and pointed to the right person - is fine , but this has got ridiculous.

I’m used to shitfighting. This is just embarrassing now

You know we are copping it from our own supporters who want answers not lies and spin?

As for embarrassing, you are doing yourself no favours.

 

[mistylake]

Why the **** did we get rid of Paulos and Bode and bring in Burton and Haas? My farkin god who authorised this crap? If it ain’t broke don’t fix it!

Ricuttio with his jobs for the boys is the talk on the street.

 

[Thetrader15]

WARREN TREDREA

The Crows have gone from the envy of the AFL to also-rans in less than a season

ADELAIDE’S football department has gone from the envy of the AFL to a basket case in under nine months.

Winning can mask many things and right now the Crows’ poor leadership and decision making has been laid bare.

After what seemed destined to be their third AFL premiership in 27 years, they’ve quickly gone from the competition’s measuring stick in 2017 to battling to play finals in a horrible fall from grace.

Coach Don Pyke and inexperienced football manager Brett Burton are under the pump.

They’ve clearly underestimated their players fragile mental state following last year’s 48-point grand final walloping by Richmond.

It’s not as simple as blaming injuries as the reason for their demise, it goes much deeper than that. And while they’re a reality, they’re never an excuse. The Crows are still fielding a highly competitive team with experienced players each week.

I’ve lost count of how many hamstring injuries the Crows players have suffered in 2018, with the latest casualty being superstar Eddie Betts for the second time this year.

Adelaide’s fitness department is in disarray. Internally, some have turned the heat up on the club’s hamstring strengthening program while others are blaming mind training for short cuts in their fitness work.

The reality is we’ll never know the cause but what’s certain is inside football clubs people will always divert blame elsewhere to save their own skin.

And while much of the heat is on GM of high performance Matt Haas, I’ve been told by reliable sources he isn’t totally to blame as the club is still using Burton’s old fitness program.

The off-season exit of former player and fitness staffer Matthew Bode to Carlton smells, especially after he offered to take a significant pay cut to stay at West Lakes.

I’ve also been surprised by what I’ve seen and heard since the grand final.

In the post-game press conference coach Don Pyke’s said “One thing that’s very hard from a coaching view point is to provide effort, players are responsible for that.” While its true I didn’t like then and still don’t now. He was effectively separating himself from his players. In footy clubs you win together and lose together.

No less than a week later the club childishly banned Jake Lever from attending the club best and fairest after he revealed he was leaving for Melbourne. It was a toys out of the cot moment – it’s well known Adelaide low-balled Lever in contract negotiations in turn forcing him to go to market.

The acquisition of Bryce Gibbs seemed to calm the masses but it wasn’t going to be the end of the off-field issues at West Lakes.

I’m all for pushing the envelope to get better, but it’s the clubs two most senior football people coach Don Pyke and footy manager Brett Burton’s job to make the right call when formulating a plan of attack for the upcoming season, it appears they’ve made grave mistakes.

There’s been huge fallout from Adelaide’s desperate, old-fashioned get tougher approach to go one better in 2018. They have clearly underestimated their players’ mental struggles to deal with the grand final loss and as much as Adelaide has tried to manipulate the media narrative the reality is the truth always gets out.

On day one of pre-season it was reported that players had come back in poor shape following their break. It’s since been revealed they were set unrealistic fitness times in testing.

The clubs’ leaders had to tell the coaching group to chill out and not be so intense.

Enter the Collective Minds program and that fateful Gold Coast camp in late January.

It was reported in late March that players were “distressed” about what happened on the camp. Allegations of blindfolding players and repeated verbal and audio taunting of various types, something I have never heard of in my 22 years in the game.

The club went into damage control sending out skipper Taylor Walker to deny the story saying “the journalist has got things completely wrong” - all the while he was text messaging his team-mates telling them to effectively shut up shop, naive considering some players were upset and the messages not surprisingly found their way into the media.

Fast forward to last week and finally Adelaide softened its approach with Don Pyke revealing “there were some things that were a bit a miss” admitting “we’d do it differently” – too little too late.

They should have been upfront from the start and admitted their errors in judgement, but because they chose to the tactic of “deny, deny, deny” it gave the story more air and heaped more pressure on their players.

While Adelaide says they’re committed to mind training and the club is still paying Collective Minds, the players refuse to work with them.

Transparency with injuries has been poor, needn’t I mention the Brad Crouch osteitis pubis debacle, where the coach said he wasn’t suffering from OP only for Crouch to contradict his coach days later. It was also reported he would have surgery, this was denied only for Crouch to go under the knife shortly after.

Burton famously claimed: “I find it offensive for anyone to suggest we aren’t upfront and open with injuries.” He along with many others have egg on their face. All preventable, unwarranted distractions the players have had to deal with.

On field it’s not surprise the playing group looks mentally shot, lacks spark and appears unwilling to play desperate hard football that was a given from the Crows in 2016 and 2017.

This could be the reason why coach Don Pyke headed to the bench on the weekend to work more one on one and reconnect with his players as the message isn’t getting through.

It’s impossible to see Adelaide replicating its wonderful season of 2017. The players appear bereft of confidence and not willing to pay the price.

And for those who think they’ll get a swag of players back from injury after the bye and flick the switch, it doesn’t just happen.

Adelaide has failed to live up to the lofty expectations in 2018 and its all been its own doing.

Pyke and Burton must be willing to put their hands up and admit they got it seriously wrong, with the once premiership favourites caught in footy’s mire.

These mistakes must never be repeated.

Tankin for Rankin! And you know what, I'm ok with that

 

[Thetrader15]

Bollocks

It was slammed during the Power rangers stance

It was slammed for the Gold Coast camp (guess who else is based in the Gold Coast)

It was slammed for how Walker and the club dealt with Lever

We may not have know at the time, but CM was behind all of that in one way or another

The 'power rangers stance' wasn't slammed in the first 2 weeks of finals!

 

[FR0GGY]

The 'power rangers stance' wasn't slammed in the first 2 weeks of finals!

That’s because we didn’t play the 2nd week

 

[mistylake]

So no , it wasn’t slammed at the time and I recall everyone was pretty happy how the 2 finals worked out -Power stance or not.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I can’t recall one post on here claiming that CM was going to be the problem it’s turned out to be

Rag on it now, fair enough but don’t come all Captain Obvious 8 months down the track

Was only slammed by vic media after we pulverised GWS and Geelong. I thought if it works do it.

 

[mistylake]

No
The Bay is tame compared to the crap in here !

No flog from the Bay could do as good a job at shit bagging the club as some in here have !

Even some on the Bay point out , er der injuries !

I think most are bagging the clubs nepotism. Which seems to have crippled the club and destroyed the players bodies and confidence.

 

[Doc_]

Had they held this ridiculous ******* camp before the GF?

Were we even aware of their involvement prior to the finals?

I read something about CM making the players meditate for 8 hours in GF week.
Playing the game too early in your head is not a good thing.
Envisioning is a powerful tool, but everyone knows not to do that shit in the pressure of GF week. You end up playing the game too soon or some shit.

 

[Slippery Pete]

Well played Tredders.

Jen and subaru must be penning a stern response to him as we speak, or maybe it’s only BF posters who tell the truth that they have a problem with?

 

[King Elvis]

That’s my point !
Nobody has come out prior to the GF and gone “well I’ve checked their web site and they seem like snake oil salesmen “ then.

Like I said - give then what they deserve now, but don’t blame the GF on CM

Again, we were even aware of their involvement prior to the GF?

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

I read something about CM making the players meditate for 8 hours in GF week.
Playing the game too early in your head is not a good thing.
Envisioning is a powerful tool, but everyone knows not to do that shit in the pressure of GF week. You end up playing the game too soon or some shit.

Dr Carl says that meditation does **** all and is a waste of time

 

[King Elvis]

Glad to see Tredrea calling out Pyke for his comments following the Grand Final. True leaders accept that the buck stops with them, and ask what they could have done better, they don't hang their subordinates out to dry. Pyke totally lost me at that point. He's not a leader.

Those comments don’t paint a good picture.

Our selection was horrible for the GF, and we went in with a game plan based on round 4 (or whenever it was we flogged them).

The coaching group have to accept a lot of the blame (even without taking CM into account); but even if they weren’t to blame, they should’ve accepted it.

 

[Doc_]

Heard the radio

Stop it
Just stop the ringing and the e mailing the whining and the negativity


It’s funken embarrassing

Whats embarrassing is you and your obsession with the bay.
Stop it.
Just stop it.

 

[Elite Crow]

I read something about CM making the players meditate for 8 hours in GF week.
Playing the game too early in your head is not a good thing.
Envisioning is a powerful tool, but everyone knows not to do that shit in the pressure of GF week. You end up playing the game too soon or some shit.

I don’t know if it was CM instigated but the players did 4 hours for 2 days in a row. Pyke was worried about them being overawed.

 

[asdfasd]

I read something about CM making the players meditate for 8 hours in GF week.
Playing the game too early in your head is not a good thing.
Envisioning is a powerful tool, but everyone knows not to do that shit in the pressure of GF week. You end up playing the game too soon or some shit.

I remember Malcolm Blight specifically instructing players to not play the game out in their heads during the lead up to our 2 grand final wins. I'm not saying that CM had us doing the opposite, I have no idea. Just a side note.

 

[GreyCrow]

I don’t know if it was CM instigated but the players did 4 hours for 2 days in a row. Pyke was worried about them being overawed.

Yeah just wrong. 10 minutes to calm your thoughts is enough.

 

[arrowman]

I don’t know if it was CM instigated but the players did 4 hours for 2 days in a row. Pyke was worried about them being overawed.

I don't have any experience in web design, or an MBA, but that sounds like too much to me.

But really, "did CM cost us the GF?" is a red herring. They jumped the shark with Mind Camp and that's where it begins and - hopefully - ends.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

Riewoldt making some interesting comments on 360. Saints back to back grand final losses. Wheels fell off the next season. Spirit broken. Lose belief in what you can achieve.

 

[GreyCrow]

I remember Malcolm Blight specifically instructing players to not play the game out in their heads during the lead up to our 2 grand final wins. I'm not saying that CM had us doing the opposite, I have no idea. Just a side note.

Blight said in his interview the one thing he asked the players was to acknowledge him as they ran out and started warming up. He said it was his way to see if they had clear heads. If they could remember that then they could remember instructions. ie they werent lost inside their heads

 

[Vhaluus]

Dr Carl says that meditation does **** all and is a waste of time

You know what they call alternate medicine that actually works? medicine.

The rest is just bullshit, meditation included.

 

[dude316]

Anyone think it’s worthwhile to start up a Collective Mind thread with Collective Mind in the title so when people google Collective Mind, us shit talking about Collective Mind is one of the first results that comes up?

 

[relapse]

What a strange post.

We are happy someone in the SA media is finally calling out the club, as a supporter who wants the club to get better, you should be happy yourself.

Especially from Tredrea because he is one of the few guys who pulls no punches and calls it like it is on both sides. He's pretty well respected on this side of the fence because he doesn't spend 50% of his time trolling supporter bases on social media and just reports things how he sees it.

 

[Elite Crow]

Yeah just wrong. 10 minutes to calm your thoughts is enough.

I don't have any experience in web design, or an MBA, but that sounds like too much to me.

But really, "did CM cost us the GF?" is a red herring. They jumped the shark with Mind Camp and that's where it begins and - hopefully - ends.

The meditation definitely happened, Fagan said it as the GF breakfast.