Latest news with #Crows
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'I've never seen that': James Hird takes blowtorch to Swans after shambolic scenes
Essendon great James Hird has taken a blowtorch to the Swans and says one shambolic play in Saturday night's huge loss to Adelaide sums up Sydney's struggles in the AFL this season. Crows star Wayne Milera probably echoed the thoughts of many fans when he described the Swans as a "rabble" after his side's thumping 90-point victory at the SCG. And Hird pointed to Sydney's lack of class up forward, their lacklustre ball movement and inadequate distribution of the footy as major issues for first-year head coach Dean Cox to try and fix. "I think their biggest issue is they haven't got a forward line," Hird said on Nine's Footy Furnace. "They haven't got a forward line that can take a contested mark and their ball movement has gone off which was their one-wood last year. Their congested side of things is not where it needs to be, they rely on too few around the middle of the ground." The Swans have been one of the most consistent sides in the AFL over the last decade and went down to Brisbane in last year's grand final after finishing the regular season on top of the ladder. But Sydney's lofty standards have slipped in 2025 as the injuries have racked up, with Cox admitting Saturday night's performance against Adelaide was "unacceptable and embarrassing". Hird agrees and says the Swans' effort areas and failure to execute the fundamentals is a major concern. "And I think the one thing I've loved about the Swans over the last 10 years is their standards. Everything was done - not perfectly - there were some mistakes but not too many," he added. The Essendon great singled out a second quarter goal for the Crows where two Sydney players just needed to scramble the ball through the posts and concede a behind. Instead, they were caught dawdling and allowed Adelaide forward Riley Thilthorpe to toe the ball through the sticks for a goal, in a moment Hird said was indicative of the Swans' struggles this year. "I've never seen a Swans backline let a goal like that go through and it might be unlucky... but I just can't believe that ball went through and I just think it's just symbolic of where the Swans are at," Hird added. "Yes, it's not a massive thing, it's not a game plan thing but I've never seen a Swans group of players in the last 10 years let that happen." Hird and three-time premiership winning Geelong great Jimmy Bartel were also shocked to hear that Milera and the Crows apologised for referring to the Swans as a "rabble". The AFL greats insisted that such criticism was fully warranted after the 90-point hiding. "So what's the cut-off point, 100? You got belted by 90 points," Bartel said. "You were a rabble. We've been a rabble before when we've been belted. Adelaide CEO Tim Silvers reportedly called Swans counterpart Tom Harley to apologise for Milera's comments and Crows teammates insist he meant no harm. RELATED: Pies' move set to force rivals into rethink as Ginnivan predicts change Calls for Kane Cornes to be sanctioned over Luke Beveridge incident AFL world gutted over heartbreaking news about West Coast hero But Hird agreed with Bartel that the criticism was warranted after Saturday night's game and took no issues with the situation. "It seems to me as if they were a rabble and you know when players are back-chatting each other and talking on the ground, you really love it when the opposition is doing it," Hird added. "But at the end of the day they were a mess, they really were a mess on Saturday night."
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Adelaide blasted for CEO's 'ridiculous' apology after Crows star makes brutally honest assessment about lacklustre Sydney Swans
Adelaide CEO Tim Silvers has reportedly issued a formal apology to Sydney boss Tom Harley after Crows defender Wayne Milera branded the Swans 'a bit of a rabble'. But his move to apologise to the Swans CEO has split opinion among some former stars, with one branding the apology 'ridiculous'. The Swans endured a night to forget at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Saturday, suffering a 90-point loss by Matthew Nicks' side, who are shaping up to be a firm finals contender this season. The Swans, meanwhile, have slumped to 14th in the ladder, 12 points clear of the top eight, with last year's Grand Finalists having lost eight of their opening matches this season. They will no doubt receive some harsh home truths from coach Dean Cox, following the defeat. Milera told ABC after the game that the Swans were a shade of themselves during the match. 'You could sort of feel it as a group... they were sort of a bit of a rabble, just hearing them on the ground,' the 27-year-old footy star said. While that appeared to be his own personal view on the matter, it appears the Crows were not impressed by his comments. Silvers subsequently issued a formal apology to the Swans. But the move has split opinion among some pundits. Campbell Brown told Sunday Footy Feast: 'God forbid you are too honest in an interview.' The former Hawthorn star then said that the apology made the Crows 'look like the rabble': 'That's such weak leadership as far as I'm concerned. 'Do you know who the rabble is now? Adelaide for having to come out and apologise.' Kate McCarthy, an AFLW All-Australian concurred: 'The fact they've basically undermined their own player there to come out — yes, they've obviously had a conversation — but that did not need to be apologised for,' she said. 'We want that from players. He didn't at any point make that personal. They were unorganised, they were a rabble — I think Sydney would have almost admitted that. 'That is absolutely ridiculous.' But not everyone was in support of Milera's candid claims. But Footy great Jack Riewoldt did not agree, arguing that the Crows defender had disrespected the opposition side. 'One hundred per cent that's disrespectful (from Milera). Yeah, calling an opposition team 'a bit of a rabble' in a media sense,' Riewoldt told Fox Footy. 'We've just come off the conversation with Matthew Nicks about they dropped Josh Rachele (last year) for 'values'. I'd love to know where a comment like that sits in the values of the Adelaide Football Club. 'So, there's clearly some big questions on that going forward, too.' Sydney are now set to receive some harsh home truths led by Dean Cox after an 'embarrassing' 90-point loss to Adelaide left the coach questioning whether he's been doing enough at the helm. And even he issued a scathing assessment of his side's performance, branding it 'unacceptable and embarrassing'. The Swans had been looking to bounce back from a dismal 53-point loss to Melbourne. A victory would have seen them celebrate the 20th anniversary of their 2005 premiership victory in style. Instead, they endured a horror show. Kept to one goal in the opening half, Sydney conceded a staggering 12-straight majors on the way to a 21.5 (131) to 5.11 (41) loss. The Swans' finals are now looking very slim chances are slim, and the frustration on Cox's face during his post-match press conference was evident. A reminder of the team-first ethos that netted the club's first premiership in 72 years, given at half-time with a lap of honour by the 2005 side, only compounded their woes. 'I didn't expect that on such a massive night for the footy club when you have a 20-year reunion for a team that played desperate, uncompromising, ruthless football,' Cox said. 'That was far from it.' West Coast great Cox is no stranger to Sydney's Bloods ethos, with the six-time All-Australian ruck's last-gasp kick famously marked by Leo Barry in the final seconds of the low-scoring 2005 grand final. But the first-year coach conceded he was left questioning if he had done enough. 'Yeah, maybe not,' Cox said. 'That's where you've got to reflect on everything within the program, and it starts with me. 'We are going to fight our way through this. 'And there's going to be no easy way through it. I said to them (the players), expect some tough sessions. That'll happen.' The statistics sheet will suggest an even contest between the two sides, with Sydney winning clearances (+13), stoppage clearances (+13) and contested possessions (+11). But Sydney crumbled under Adelaide's pressure, making uncharacteristic errors and giving away costly penalties with moments of ill-discipline. 'The impact that they (Adelaide) had with their contested ball was far superior than ours,' Cox said. 'We'd fumble, get it to the next one, we might take it, then we'd handball or cough it up, then we'd go again. 'Whereas they were just a one-two punch, 'See you later, we're out of here'. 'Part of it comes to confidence when you are inconsistent, but the number one thing that brings consistency is, you spend time on your game. 'You know exactly when you finish the week and you start, I'm confident in my ability because I've done the work - that's the only way you build confidence. 'That's something that I've certainly got to drive harder and I'm going to.' Sydney will face 16th-placed Richmond before they head into their mid-season bye, while third-placed Adelaide play Brisbane.
News.com.au
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Crows solidify top 4 with Swans smashing
AFL: A celebration of the Sydney Swans 2005 premiership turned into a nightmare as the Crows secured a huge win at the SCG.
Sydney Morning Herald
6 days ago
- Sport
- Sydney Morning Herald
How a club legend, a meat billionaire and a former premier led the Crows out of the darkness
Every AFL club has a network of influencers who make things happen through their wealth, fame or political connections. This is our series on the football world's movers and shakers. See all 9 stories. As Mark Ricciuto picked up the phone to call Neil Balme in the winter of 2020, little did the former Crows captain know that he was speaking with the figure who would become his replacement as the most senior football person on the board of the Adelaide Football Club. Back then, Ricciuto was wrestling with the struggles of the bottom club in the league, with a rookie coach in Matthew Nicks, a thin playing list and a psyche bruised by the 2017 grand final defeat, the infamous 2018 pre-season camp and all that flowed from it. Balme, then ensconced at Richmond, seemed the obvious choice for Ricciuto as what he called a 'godfather of football' for the Crows, steeped in both South Australian football (as former coach of Norwood and Woodville West Torrens) and more contemporary successes as a football department overseer for Collingwood, Geelong and the Tigers. Those initial conversations with Ricciuto planted a seed for Balme to think more about Adelaide, even as health problems precluded him from accepting a full-time job. The Crows were also searching for their next chairman. Rob Chapman, who had held the role since 2009, was aware that the club needed a fresh figurehead after the camp scandal. His first succession plan had been waylaid by the death of his well-liked deputy Bob Foord in December 2017, leaving Chapman to turn to someone who'd often been on the opposite side of the negotiating table: SANFL chairman and former Liberal premier John Olsen. Olsen spent as much as eight weeks mulling it over. He was conscious of how the Crows carried so much expectation within the state, dating back to his time as premier between 1996 and 2001. Tellingly, Olsen had experienced the rush of optimism wrought by the club's only flags, in 1997 and 1998. 'The first flag was won just after we'd lost the [Formula 1] grand prix to Melbourne, we'd had a drought, the State Bank had fallen over, the psyche of the state was flat,' he says. 'But that win just lifted people. I can't describe to you just how impactful that was in the community.' Olsen made two swift decisions on his arrival. He parted ways with the club's previous chief executive Andrew Fagan, who had a background in rugby union, and replaced him with Tim Silvers, Hawthorn's longtime COO. The other call was to push for the introduction of term limits on the board, to allow for continuous regeneration of the club's leadership and to head-off accusations of a 'boys' club' at Adelaide. Olsen wanted a 10-year limit, but ultimately agreed to a compromise of 12. That meant Ricciuto's time would be up at the end of this year. He was the club's football director from 2014 after becoming disenchanted by the Crows' decision-making in the years after his playing retirement in 2007. Ricciuto has been central to every major football appointment since: sacking Brenton Sanderson, then hiring senior coaches Phil Walsh, Don Pyke and Nicks, football department heads Brett Burton and Adam Kelly, and this year's addition of Brisbane Lions coaching stalwart Murray Davis to assist Nicks. He has since been a driver of the current rebuilding path. But over the same decade, Ricciuto has also been a high-profile lightning rod for criticism of the club. In his morning radio gig with Triple M, the Brownlow medallist did not always respond to these barbs with measured words, and fired a few of his own at other clubs. And while there was robust debate around the board table about the extent to which the turkeys would vote for Thanksgiving, a fresh approach to Balme, alongside former Crows utility and St Kilda list manager James Gallagher, brought reassurance that the club's football expertise would be enhanced rather than diminished in Ricciuto's wake. Loading Importantly, Balme and Gallagher are running their eyes over the program of head coach Nicks, who is under contract until 2026, and will decide what else can be done to help the players make the most of their 'premiership window'. Balme, of course, has relationships with the likes of Damien Hardwick and Chris Scott, should the Crows decide they need to headhunt a premiership coach as the last piece of the puzzle. But as multiple other clubs will attest, Balme primarily brings reassurance and a seasoned eye. 'Some of the meetings I've seen where they've had an issue they needed to fix and the way they've done that and engaged the players to come up with an answer and buy-in has been very, very good,' Balme says. 'They've got a very logical feel for how things are going, not 'if we don't play well you're a useless player, you're a useless coach'. And that's more important if you're a club like Adelaide where everyone has an opinion about you.' Ricciuto is revered in Adelaide. He is in business with pub baron and former Crows director Peter Hurley, whom he counts alongside Chapman as his two greatest mentors. Until 2023, Ricciuto owned the iconic Alma Tavern in Norwood alongside Hurley and Crows champions Rory Sloane and Taylor Walker. 'I've always said to CEOs or chairs that I'll stay as long as I'm wanted and as long as they think I'm the best person for the job, that's all I'm interested in,' Ricciuto says. 'If term limits are going to help the football club then I'll do what needs to be done, but personally they're not the sorts of things I'm concerned about.' But now that the club has put a limit on his tenure, he is relieved that Balme was eventually able to answer the call. So is Olsen. 'Mark's hard to replace in the context of time commitment, his absolute passion for the club,' Olsen says. 'But in bringing Neil and James in, you bring in not only Neil's footy experience and a whole raft of intellectual property he brings to the board table, but also James in a different generation that brings in a list management skill set. 'You ensure that as far as football strategy is concerned you have people well-versed and experienced being able to have an informed debate at board level where decisions are made. You could argue there's two replacing one to get that, but the simple fact is term limits give you the guardrails to ensure you put in place measures for continuity, not disruption.' Adelaide's $2.27 billion benefactor If Ricciuto has been the Crows' highest profile powerbroker over the past decade, its wealthiest has arisen from the most successful business in South Australia over the same period. Darren Thomas and his father Chris are the principals of the meat company Thomas Foods International, which posted revenue of $3.29 billion last year to make it Australia's 14th largest business by that measure. Formed in 1988, the company built up over the same period in which the Crows did. In recent years Darren Thomas has effectively taken over from club patron and Clipsal impresario Rob Gerard as the club's most important benefactor. It's no coincidence that Thomas was one of a select few invited to help turn the first sod for the club's new base at Thebarton Oval. Thomas played for South Adelaide and Sturt, before turning full-time to the family business, of which he is now the managing director. He counts inaugural Crows Peter McIntyre, Mark Bickley and Nigel Smart among his friends from South Adelaide, and also reels off Ricciuto, Simon Goodwin, Tony Modra and Matthew Powell as close mates. He was with Goodwin when Melbourne won the 2021 flag in Perth, and attended the Melbourne coach's wedding earlier this year. He also has links to AFL House royalty, as a friend of Gillon McLachlan and one of his predecessors, Wayne Jackson. 'We still buy a lot of Wayne's cattle,' Thomas says. 'And we provide the meat for the annual AFL lunch at Australia House in London.' It is not uncommon for Thomas to mentor Crows players. He was introduced to James Podsiadly in 2014, becoming friends and then business partners around the creation of the AFL Max indoor facility that numerous other Crows figures also invested in. And he is a regular coffee partner of Adelaide's precision goalkicker Darcy Fogarty. 'You're just there to listen and help them think through some things,' he says. 'Going back to the early days when we were nothing and I knew nothing, I had some people who were impactful on me, who happened to come through football and my school, Westminster, some of the teachers there. So I've never forgotten those things and I like to give back. 'Darce being a country boy and knowing his family for a while, it was just a good opportunity to be a sounding ear for him. If you keep players in the right headspace, the clubs will get them to perform at their optimum.' Sturt's Unley Oval home was named Thomas Farms Oval last year, but it is with the Crows that the family has had a national impact, starting with a small sponsorship in the early 2000s and banner advertising at Football Park, to becoming one of Adelaide's biggest sponsors, alongside Toyota. Loading Thomas' commitment can be measured by how he drove 17 hours from Toowoomba, where his daughter was competing in a national equestrian competition, to Melbourne in time to watch the 2017 grand final. He is hopeful the Crows have learned the necessary lessons from that period to sustain success. 'The club's really had a good inward look at itself and said 'we've got to change the way we go about things' and we're starting to see the fruits of that now,' he says. 'It was always hard for the club to attract or retain players, so I think the club has done a wonderful job to get into a position where players want to come here. 'Having Jordan [Dawson] and others coming back to the club has been a huge benefit and could set up one of those foundations, where clubs like Geelong and Hawthorn have been able to have very good success from stable groups of senior players, which allows you to blood younger players and gives you stability.' Tragedy and misadventure The Crows' sustained off-field success has long competed with unwanted headlines, fluctuating on-field fortunes and an Adelaide fishbowl. The club sat highly in the public's estimation for how bravely, openly and gracefully it handled the unfathomable tragedy of senior coach Phil Walsh's murder in the middle of the 2015 season. The off-field response, combined with a sterling performance on the park, resulted in a finals campaign fought in Walsh's memory. Adelaide's AFLW program is the envy of the league, with three premierships to date, despite not yet having a home ground on which to play consistently. But over the past 15 years, there has also been the Kurt Tippett salary cap scandal, the aforementioned camp and former captain Taylor Walker's racial vilification case, to name three instances where the Crows became a national conversation topic for the wrong reasons. 'Having such a supporter base, anything that happens to the Crows is newsworthy, good or bad,' Olsen says. 'That brings a focus and profile that sometimes you would prefer not to have. 'The profile builds supporter base, membership and interaction with the club, but the high profile also brings its challenges, particularly for some of the players where the 'fishbowl' is evident in their daily lives out and about in the community. That's a part of it, but it goes with the territory. 'I think it's really important to be as transparent and open as you can be. If you make a mistake, the best thing to do is to front up and explain it immediately, and cop it on the chin, certainly not to attempt to obfuscate.' Since 2020, Adelaide's efforts to recover from the own goals of 2017 and 2018 have been slow but steady. The club now has an enviable playing list, an improving industry reputation, and is back growing its membership and supporter base after several years of dwindling numbers. Olsen and his board have made a point of reconnecting with past players, supporters or the small and medium-sized businesses that have always been the lifeblood of SA. Counsel is sought from a clutch of former club decision-makers, including Chapman, his former deputy Jim Hazel, Hurley and also Bill Sanders, the club's avuncular first chief executive and later its third chairman. Sanders has spent long hours working to repair the relationship between the club and Andrew McLeod, one of their greatest players. McLeod was among the most outspoken critics in 2020, pointing particularly to a sense that Adelaide's history had been taken for granted. That is something Silvers and Olsen have worked to rectify, although the chairman says carefully that the Crows' relationship with McLeod is still 'a journey'. Another member of the premiership group is former ruckman Shaun Rehn, who spoke frequently and at length with Olsen in the early part of his time in the chair. But, adds Olsen, 'Not recently, because I presume that therefore we've done a journey and picked up on a number of aspects that guys were disappointed about.' Other past players spoken to by this masthead still believe the Crows can do more to connect with those who did not play in premierships or play 100 games or more. Sam Jacobs leads the past players' group, with premiership captain Bickley as his deputy. 'There's not that tribal connection you see at other clubs,' one player says. Nonetheless, Balme's appointment has offered cause for optimism. He is a figure synonymous with smart decisions, care for players and staff and premiership success. It has taken a long time to get there, however. 'If I gave advice to future chairs, avoid rebuilds,' says Olsen, who plans to retire from the board in 2027. 'They are long and they are painful and you've got to work your way through it. I remember Rob Chapman sending me a text when we had a really good win, he said 'enjoy the moment, because it will make up for all the others you'll go through'.' Ghosts of Football Park Max Basheer, the long-serving SANFL president, has penned a memoir of his decades in football that will only be published after he dies. One nugget Basheer has offered up already is how he effectively secured the creation of the Crows in September 1990 with cold, hard cash. He promised to hand the league's then-chief Ross Oakley $1 million in the AFL's bank account within days of a secret meeting at the Southern Cross Hotel in Melbourne. The speed and the secrecy were necessary because Adelaide's creation came as a result of Port Adelaide's own attempt to join the AFL by stealth a couple of months earlier – after years of talks about an SA-based VFL/AFL team had got nowhere. A court injunction by SANFL clubs succeeded in stalling Port's bid, but it was Basheer's speedy use of the league's bank account that truly kicked off the Crows. Loading That 1990 saga was the starting point for a rich rivalry between Adelaide and Port, but it also underscored how much the Crows were considered to be the SANFL's baby. Independence from the state league, a more focused club identity and even a base to truly call home were elusive for decades, largely because of those origins. It is also why when the AFL, the state government, Port Adelaide and the South Australian Cricket Association began scheming for a way to get football back to Adelaide Oval, the Crows were initially left out of the loop, and spoke for some time about not leaving Football Park until they got the best possible terms. All parties – even Basheer – now accept that the Adelaide Oval redevelopment was a multimillion-dollar revelation. Not only did it save Port from insolvency but helped the Crows to grow, also attracting previously unseen levels of interstate interest, personified by Gather Round. Even so, the move came with financial machinations that were added to the case, often made by Port supporters and others, that the Crows are not a 'real club'. In moving home games from West Lakes to Adelaide Oval, the SANFL handed over the licences for the two clubs to the AFL, which held them as security for the Crows and Power to pay a fee back to the state league. Loading Until that fee is paid off in 2028, the AFL owns the licence and theoretically has the right to veto club board appointments and other major decisions. That has led to claims that the Crows are the plaything of AFL House. But Olsen stresses work is under way to turn Adelaide into a more traditional, membership-based organisation when the final payment is made three years from now. 'At that point, the licence held by the AFL and their one voting member returns to us and we will then look at the constitution,' Olsen says. 'We're a club that's never reached out for mendicant funding from the AFL, always stood on our own two feet, and in this whole period the AFL has never rejected a board member or any decision the Adelaide Football Club has taken in regard to its governance structure.' The Crows' new home at Thebarton– a $100 million development partly funded by donors including the Thomas family in addition to $40 million in state and federal money – will mark the completion of a journey from SANFL invention to fully realised independence.
The Age
6 days ago
- Sport
- The Age
How a club legend, a meat billionaire and a former premier led the Crows out of the darkness
Every AFL club has a network of influencers who make things happen through their wealth, fame or political connections. This is our series on the football world's movers and shakers. See all 9 stories. As Mark Ricciuto picked up the phone to call Neil Balme in the winter of 2020, little did the former Crows captain know that he was speaking with the figure who would become his replacement as the most senior football person on the board of the Adelaide Football Club. Back then, Ricciuto was wrestling with the struggles of the bottom club in the league, with a rookie coach in Matthew Nicks, a thin playing list and a psyche bruised by the 2017 grand final defeat, the infamous 2018 pre-season camp and all that flowed from it. Balme, then ensconced at Richmond, seemed the obvious choice for Ricciuto as what he called a 'godfather of football' for the Crows, steeped in both South Australian football (as former coach of Norwood and Woodville West Torrens) and more contemporary successes as a football department overseer for Collingwood, Geelong and the Tigers. Those initial conversations with Ricciuto planted a seed for Balme to think more about Adelaide, even as health problems precluded him from accepting a full-time job. The Crows were also searching for their next chairman. Rob Chapman, who had held the role since 2009, was aware that the club needed a fresh figurehead after the camp scandal. His first succession plan had been waylaid by the death of his well-liked deputy Bob Foord in December 2017, leaving Chapman to turn to someone who'd often been on the opposite side of the negotiating table: SANFL chairman and former Liberal premier John Olsen. Olsen spent as much as eight weeks mulling it over. He was conscious of how the Crows carried so much expectation within the state, dating back to his time as premier between 1996 and 2001. Tellingly, Olsen had experienced the rush of optimism wrought by the club's only flags, in 1997 and 1998. 'The first flag was won just after we'd lost the [Formula 1] grand prix to Melbourne, we'd had a drought, the State Bank had fallen over, the psyche of the state was flat,' he says. 'But that win just lifted people. I can't describe to you just how impactful that was in the community.' Olsen made two swift decisions on his arrival. He parted ways with the club's previous chief executive Andrew Fagan, who had a background in rugby union, and replaced him with Tim Silvers, Hawthorn's longtime COO. The other call was to push for the introduction of term limits on the board, to allow for continuous regeneration of the club's leadership and to head-off accusations of a 'boys' club' at Adelaide. Olsen wanted a 10-year limit, but ultimately agreed to a compromise of 12. That meant Ricciuto's time would be up at the end of this year. He was the club's football director from 2014 after becoming disenchanted by the Crows' decision-making in the years after his playing retirement in 2007. Ricciuto has been central to every major football appointment since: sacking Brenton Sanderson, then hiring senior coaches Phil Walsh, Don Pyke and Nicks, football department heads Brett Burton and Adam Kelly, and this year's addition of Brisbane Lions coaching stalwart Murray Davis to assist Nicks. He has since been a driver of the current rebuilding path. But over the same decade, Ricciuto has also been a high-profile lightning rod for criticism of the club. In his morning radio gig with Triple M, the Brownlow medallist did not always respond to these barbs with measured words, and fired a few of his own at other clubs. And while there was robust debate around the board table about the extent to which the turkeys would vote for Thanksgiving, a fresh approach to Balme, alongside former Crows utility and St Kilda list manager James Gallagher, brought reassurance that the club's football expertise would be enhanced rather than diminished in Ricciuto's wake. Loading Importantly, Balme and Gallagher are running their eyes over the program of head coach Nicks, who is under contract until 2026, and will decide what else can be done to help the players make the most of their 'premiership window'. Balme, of course, has relationships with the likes of Damien Hardwick and Chris Scott, should the Crows decide they need to headhunt a premiership coach as the last piece of the puzzle. But as multiple other clubs will attest, Balme primarily brings reassurance and a seasoned eye. 'Some of the meetings I've seen where they've had an issue they needed to fix and the way they've done that and engaged the players to come up with an answer and buy-in has been very, very good,' Balme says. 'They've got a very logical feel for how things are going, not 'if we don't play well you're a useless player, you're a useless coach'. And that's more important if you're a club like Adelaide where everyone has an opinion about you.' Ricciuto is revered in Adelaide. He is in business with pub baron and former Crows director Peter Hurley, whom he counts alongside Chapman as his two greatest mentors. Until 2023, Ricciuto owned the iconic Alma Tavern in Norwood alongside Hurley and Crows champions Rory Sloane and Taylor Walker. 'I've always said to CEOs or chairs that I'll stay as long as I'm wanted and as long as they think I'm the best person for the job, that's all I'm interested in,' Ricciuto says. 'If term limits are going to help the football club then I'll do what needs to be done, but personally they're not the sorts of things I'm concerned about.' But now that the club has put a limit on his tenure, he is relieved that Balme was eventually able to answer the call. So is Olsen. 'Mark's hard to replace in the context of time commitment, his absolute passion for the club,' Olsen says. 'But in bringing Neil and James in, you bring in not only Neil's footy experience and a whole raft of intellectual property he brings to the board table, but also James in a different generation that brings in a list management skill set. 'You ensure that as far as football strategy is concerned you have people well-versed and experienced being able to have an informed debate at board level where decisions are made. You could argue there's two replacing one to get that, but the simple fact is term limits give you the guardrails to ensure you put in place measures for continuity, not disruption.' Adelaide's $2.27 billion benefactor If Ricciuto has been the Crows' highest profile powerbroker over the past decade, its wealthiest has arisen from the most successful business in South Australia over the same period. Darren Thomas and his father Chris are the principals of the meat company Thomas Foods International, which posted revenue of $3.29 billion last year to make it Australia's 14th largest business by that measure. Formed in 1988, the company built up over the same period in which the Crows did. In recent years Darren Thomas has effectively taken over from club patron and Clipsal impresario Rob Gerard as the club's most important benefactor. It's no coincidence that Thomas was one of a select few invited to help turn the first sod for the club's new base at Thebarton Oval. Thomas played for South Adelaide and Sturt, before turning full-time to the family business, of which he is now the managing director. He counts inaugural Crows Peter McIntyre, Mark Bickley and Nigel Smart among his friends from South Adelaide, and also reels off Ricciuto, Simon Goodwin, Tony Modra and Matthew Powell as close mates. He was with Goodwin when Melbourne won the 2021 flag in Perth, and attended the Melbourne coach's wedding earlier this year. He also has links to AFL House royalty, as a friend of Gillon McLachlan and one of his predecessors, Wayne Jackson. 'We still buy a lot of Wayne's cattle,' Thomas says. 'And we provide the meat for the annual AFL lunch at Australia House in London.' It is not uncommon for Thomas to mentor Crows players. He was introduced to James Podsiadly in 2014, becoming friends and then business partners around the creation of the AFL Max indoor facility that numerous other Crows figures also invested in. And he is a regular coffee partner of Adelaide's precision goalkicker Darcy Fogarty. 'You're just there to listen and help them think through some things,' he says. 'Going back to the early days when we were nothing and I knew nothing, I had some people who were impactful on me, who happened to come through football and my school, Westminster, some of the teachers there. So I've never forgotten those things and I like to give back. 'Darce being a country boy and knowing his family for a while, it was just a good opportunity to be a sounding ear for him. If you keep players in the right headspace, the clubs will get them to perform at their optimum.' Sturt's Unley Oval home was named Thomas Farms Oval last year, but it is with the Crows that the family has had a national impact, starting with a small sponsorship in the early 2000s and banner advertising at Football Park, to becoming one of Adelaide's biggest sponsors, alongside Toyota. Loading Thomas' commitment can be measured by how he drove 17 hours from Toowoomba, where his daughter was competing in a national equestrian competition, to Melbourne in time to watch the 2017 grand final. He is hopeful the Crows have learned the necessary lessons from that period to sustain success. 'The club's really had a good inward look at itself and said 'we've got to change the way we go about things' and we're starting to see the fruits of that now,' he says. 'It was always hard for the club to attract or retain players, so I think the club has done a wonderful job to get into a position where players want to come here. 'Having Jordan [Dawson] and others coming back to the club has been a huge benefit and could set up one of those foundations, where clubs like Geelong and Hawthorn have been able to have very good success from stable groups of senior players, which allows you to blood younger players and gives you stability.' Tragedy and misadventure The Crows' sustained off-field success has long competed with unwanted headlines, fluctuating on-field fortunes and an Adelaide fishbowl. The club sat highly in the public's estimation for how bravely, openly and gracefully it handled the unfathomable tragedy of senior coach Phil Walsh's murder in the middle of the 2015 season. The off-field response, combined with a sterling performance on the park, resulted in a finals campaign fought in Walsh's memory. Adelaide's AFLW program is the envy of the league, with three premierships to date, despite not yet having a home ground on which to play consistently. But over the past 15 years, there has also been the Kurt Tippett salary cap scandal, the aforementioned camp and former captain Taylor Walker's racial vilification case, to name three instances where the Crows became a national conversation topic for the wrong reasons. 'Having such a supporter base, anything that happens to the Crows is newsworthy, good or bad,' Olsen says. 'That brings a focus and profile that sometimes you would prefer not to have. 'The profile builds supporter base, membership and interaction with the club, but the high profile also brings its challenges, particularly for some of the players where the 'fishbowl' is evident in their daily lives out and about in the community. That's a part of it, but it goes with the territory. 'I think it's really important to be as transparent and open as you can be. If you make a mistake, the best thing to do is to front up and explain it immediately, and cop it on the chin, certainly not to attempt to obfuscate.' Since 2020, Adelaide's efforts to recover from the own goals of 2017 and 2018 have been slow but steady. The club now has an enviable playing list, an improving industry reputation, and is back growing its membership and supporter base after several years of dwindling numbers. Olsen and his board have made a point of reconnecting with past players, supporters or the small and medium-sized businesses that have always been the lifeblood of SA. Counsel is sought from a clutch of former club decision-makers, including Chapman, his former deputy Jim Hazel, Hurley and also Bill Sanders, the club's avuncular first chief executive and later its third chairman. Sanders has spent long hours working to repair the relationship between the club and Andrew McLeod, one of their greatest players. McLeod was among the most outspoken critics in 2020, pointing particularly to a sense that Adelaide's history had been taken for granted. That is something Silvers and Olsen have worked to rectify, although the chairman says carefully that the Crows' relationship with McLeod is still 'a journey'. Another member of the premiership group is former ruckman Shaun Rehn, who spoke frequently and at length with Olsen in the early part of his time in the chair. But, adds Olsen, 'Not recently, because I presume that therefore we've done a journey and picked up on a number of aspects that guys were disappointed about.' Other past players spoken to by this masthead still believe the Crows can do more to connect with those who did not play in premierships or play 100 games or more. Sam Jacobs leads the past players' group, with premiership captain Bickley as his deputy. 'There's not that tribal connection you see at other clubs,' one player says. Nonetheless, Balme's appointment has offered cause for optimism. He is a figure synonymous with smart decisions, care for players and staff and premiership success. It has taken a long time to get there, however. 'If I gave advice to future chairs, avoid rebuilds,' says Olsen, who plans to retire from the board in 2027. 'They are long and they are painful and you've got to work your way through it. I remember Rob Chapman sending me a text when we had a really good win, he said 'enjoy the moment, because it will make up for all the others you'll go through'.' Ghosts of Football Park Max Basheer, the long-serving SANFL president, has penned a memoir of his decades in football that will only be published after he dies. One nugget Basheer has offered up already is how he effectively secured the creation of the Crows in September 1990 with cold, hard cash. He promised to hand the league's then-chief Ross Oakley $1 million in the AFL's bank account within days of a secret meeting at the Southern Cross Hotel in Melbourne. The speed and the secrecy were necessary because Adelaide's creation came as a result of Port Adelaide's own attempt to join the AFL by stealth a couple of months earlier – after years of talks about an SA-based VFL/AFL team had got nowhere. A court injunction by SANFL clubs succeeded in stalling Port's bid, but it was Basheer's speedy use of the league's bank account that truly kicked off the Crows. Loading That 1990 saga was the starting point for a rich rivalry between Adelaide and Port, but it also underscored how much the Crows were considered to be the SANFL's baby. Independence from the state league, a more focused club identity and even a base to truly call home were elusive for decades, largely because of those origins. It is also why when the AFL, the state government, Port Adelaide and the South Australian Cricket Association began scheming for a way to get football back to Adelaide Oval, the Crows were initially left out of the loop, and spoke for some time about not leaving Football Park until they got the best possible terms. All parties – even Basheer – now accept that the Adelaide Oval redevelopment was a multimillion-dollar revelation. Not only did it save Port from insolvency but helped the Crows to grow, also attracting previously unseen levels of interstate interest, personified by Gather Round. Even so, the move came with financial machinations that were added to the case, often made by Port supporters and others, that the Crows are not a 'real club'. In moving home games from West Lakes to Adelaide Oval, the SANFL handed over the licences for the two clubs to the AFL, which held them as security for the Crows and Power to pay a fee back to the state league. Loading Until that fee is paid off in 2028, the AFL owns the licence and theoretically has the right to veto club board appointments and other major decisions. That has led to claims that the Crows are the plaything of AFL House. But Olsen stresses work is under way to turn Adelaide into a more traditional, membership-based organisation when the final payment is made three years from now. 'At that point, the licence held by the AFL and their one voting member returns to us and we will then look at the constitution,' Olsen says. 'We're a club that's never reached out for mendicant funding from the AFL, always stood on our own two feet, and in this whole period the AFL has never rejected a board member or any decision the Adelaide Football Club has taken in regard to its governance structure.' The Crows' new home at Thebarton– a $100 million development partly funded by donors including the Thomas family in addition to $40 million in state and federal money – will mark the completion of a journey from SANFL invention to fully realised independence.
