From an Adelaide journo:Touch of the Fumbles - Goodbye to RomanceYep, an uneventful post-season.
Nothing to write home about.
Just our coach quitting, the club sliding out of top three draft contention, an unpleasant external review, an unpleasant internal review, the next two most senior guys in the football department getting the arse, a third of a team including three of the four most likeable players on our list* bumped out the door and a new coach appointed.
That’s all.
Even the stuff that had nothing to do with us was pretty annoying, not least the PTSD flashback experience of watching Richmond rollicking home in a Grand Final.
Still, there were consolations: at least we’re now the least worst of the Tigers’ recent premiership opponents.
At the end of the day though, we should be, perhaps, vaguely thankful one of the few teams in the AFL without a former Adelaide player in their ranks keeps winning the flag.
And who knows? Maybe Carlton will one day lend us some other great player whose spirit needs breaking?
After all, we’re the place to do it.
Yes, that infamous preseason camp still occupies far too much of the narrative surrounding our doomed, damned club.
It was supposedly about breaking the players down and then building them back up again, which is ironically the exact opposite of what the current administration has done to the football club as a whole. But the fallout has now indirectly claimed the jobs of our head of football and senior assistant coach (who was presumably boned just because his name was a constant reminder of the word ‘Camp’), while departing players begin to spill the proverbial beans.
The culpability or otherwise of anyone else is apparently neither here nor there since the external review was helpfully mandated to audit neither board nor administration… because obviously neither board nor administration had any say in a camp for which the best that could be said is that it was probably better than Essendon’s. Right…?
For yes, we must endeavour to find a bright side – a silver lining to the clouds that appear to have settled in above us for the long haul.
And here is one at least: Paddy Dangerfield has now lost as many preliminary finals as the Crows have since their last flag. So that’s something.
We know the Crows will play the proverbial kids next year, so at least we’ll get to catch a glimpse of that next generation of talent, the guys who will one day screw up our next premiership tilt.
Then there’s the imminent appointment of new senior football staff, including the freshly-created role of Head of Leadership and Culture, with one contender springing immediately to mind:
https://media1.giphy.com/media/3o85xnoIXebk3xYx4Q/giphy.gif?cid=790b7611c856011b3e00a877645930b1461022dc8d0f6ac4&rid=giphy.gifFull article: https://indaily.com.au/sport/touch-of-the-fumbles/2019/10/21/touch-of-the-fumbles-goodbye-to-romance/
