Craig mastermind?

[adelaide_girl]

Been tossing up a theory for a while now, and am curious for others opinions on it.

I was never a fan of the Neil Craig appointment, but i am happily filling my tummy on humble pie and it's delicious, but as the weeks have gone on i have wondered how much of Neil Craig was in those 1997/98 premierships? If I am right in my recolection he left the AFC at the end of 98, and we slid down the ladder, resulting in Malcolm Blight leaving a sinking ship.

In 2000-03, we had one of the best lists in the league, and a gun midfield, but our finals aspirations were futile. I am sitting wondering if Gary Ayers was a coach who was autocratic, and it was his way or no way?

This year the longer the season goes the more glimpses of 1997/98 i see, where the team is a close unit, where there are no standout stars, the team effort is even, and consistant with very few if any passengers, and little reliance on the traditional 'stars'.

Would love to hear others thoughts on my observations.

 

[- PC -]

The more I think about this the more I can see the link... I do check myself to see if my NC coloured glasses are affecting my thought processes , and if we are reading too much into it. But you are correct in our balance ...not too many Adelaide players are in the ''top 5'' lists in any category , but we have a lot all sitting together producing a consistent output.

I think the fact that NC spent time away from football , not only opened his eyes to different coaching methods, but also allowed his ego to be muted to include and accept different ideas. Yes I do believe Gary Ayres was autocratic...ask why McLeod is happy to play off the backline under NC and not GA(assuming he is happy that is)

Great post and well done A_G

 

[macca23]

I think those years that Craig spent with both Blight and Ayres were the best years of his life for many different reasons.

By his own admissions, the Craig that joined the AFC after a coaching stint at Norwood was a pretty average coach who had made more than his own fair share of errors as a coach.

In the three years that he spent with Blight he would have observed a flawed mastermind at work. One that oscillated between genius and madman, the latter applying to his treatment of Matty Connell and his 3rd year as our coach. But nevertheless a genius with flair and imagination

Then came the contrast. Almost 5 years with the dour uncompromising unimaginative almost boring Gary Ayres, who has been to football what Mike Brearley and Geoffrey Boycott were to cricket.

So Craig had an inside first-hand look at what won premierships and what guaranteed that you couldn't win one, and being an extremely level-headed and intelligent man has adapted the best out of everything he has seen and has added man management, sports science and injury management to the repetoire.

So in summary, if he is a mastermind, he's an acquired one rather than a natural one.

The answer is that he probably isn't, but that he is just a very intelligent man who not only is a good learner but knows how to apply what he has learnt, enhanced by his own personal touches.

And the good thing is that he is still learning.

 

[crowie]

I think that with his learning style he could be a Kevin Sheedy type long term coach. If he can change his style to suit the game then there is no reason why he couldn't be in the game for a long time. If he wants to stay relevent then he will have to continue to learn his trade.

Kylie Minogue, Madonna and Cher all evolved their music styles to suit the popular music of each era that they've been in.

No reason why Neil Craig can't do the same with his coaching.

 

[noddy]

So in summary, if he is a mastermind, he's an acquired one rather than a natural one.

The answer is that he probably isn't, but that he is just a very intelligent man who not only is a good learner but knows how to apply what he has learnt, enhanced by his own personal touches.

And the good thing is that he is still learning.

& that's it in a nut shell macca.

The guys a glutton for knowledge & will not rest on his laurels.

 

[NikkiNoo]

Some really good points raised. I was not happy with the process but I was very happy with Neil Craig as I have observed him personally doing what I consider his most important coaching job - his children. So from the start I always though he would have a very positive effect on the club.

As a coach myself, I know that the first thing you should always do is look at what did I do right, what did I do wrong and how can I improve that. I don't think this was anything that Ayres is/was able to do. Craig's experience outside of football and his willingness to listen to others I think is his greatest asset and why it makes him very interesting to listen to and the main reason that the players are performing above expectation - they are a team.

On his effect on the club during 97/98 it was obvious in out fitness that he had quite an effect but I am pretty sure (from memory so old timers may be kicking in early ) that when blight was questioned about certain match winning moves he would tell anyone who listened that they were suggested by Craig.

 

[cro_Magnum]

Some really good points raised. I was not happy with the process but I was very happy with Neil Craig as I have observed him personally doing what I consider his most important coaching job - his children. So from the start I always though he would have a very positive effect on the club.

As a coach myself, I know that the first thing you should always do is look at what did I do right, what did I do wrong and how can I improve that. I don't think this was anything that Ayres is/was able to do. Craig's experience outside of football and his willingness to listen to others I think is his greatest asset and why it makes him very interesting to listen to and the main reason that the players are performing above expectation - they are a team.

On his effect on the club during 97/98 it was obvious in out fitness that he had quite an effect but I am pretty sure (from memory so old timers may be kicking in early ) that when blight was questioned about certain match winning moves he would tell anyone who listened that they were suggested by Craig.

Good points. A good coach has the abillity to look inward at themselves as well as outward at their players, like NC does. Gary only looked out and if something went wrong it was always "their" fault not his. Never heard one word of humility from him and this is still the same today. He didn't get it then and prob never will. I think Terry Wallace is a little bit the same

 

[Crowz Gal]

Would the fact that he has a sports science background and has experience behind the scenes being involved with a world class team (the Aussie cycling team) be an advantage???? Most of the AFL coaches dont have this experience and I think that this is a huge advantage for us.
He obviously has a little more scientific knowledge and may be able to read his players a little better then other coaches.

Im not sure if, with his sports science degree, he would have learnt a little psychology. I know that all clubs would most probably employ a sports psychologist. But I think that if your coach has this knowlede then it is a HUGE andvantage.

 

[ignoranus]

I always thought he was the unsung hero in the premierships. What he DOES understand very well from his scientific background is training and fitness.

 

[beartoo]

Yeah, agreed, the way the Crows ran out the 97 and 98 seasons, and especially the GFs was magic. We peaked at the right time and hopefully will do the same this year.

 

[st05]

I had heard that Malcolm was asked by the AFC who he thought should be his replacement and he recommended Gary Ayres? Disappointing if this is true.....

 

[beartoo]

Don't tell me anyone was taking Malcolm seriously in his last year?

 

[- PC -]

Dont forget Ayres had gotten Geelong to a GF.

 

[Alex99]

Dont forget Ayres had gotten Geelong to a GF.

On the back of work M Blight put in (89-94)and a few stars (G Ablett, G Hocking, B Brownless, P Couch, B Stoneham, J Barnes, and a few others)

Not sure how much influence Gary Ayres had on that team going by the stories told, some of the Geelong boys did as they pleased and just needed Blighty to keep them in control.

 

[WaynesWorld19]

Thought it timely to bring up this old article:

How did Neil Craig get the Crows flying
11 June 2005 Herald Sun
Trevor Grant

NOBODY suspected anything out of the ordinary as Neil Craig, Adelaide's new fitness coach, outlined the main training exercise of the day.
Mike Sheahan
Gerard Healy
Jon Anderson
Round 12 photos

Getting results: Neil Craig barks the orders at training.
It was the middle of summer, a time when every player expected a 10km run to be just another necessary, if mundane, part of the pre-season package.

The 40 or so players absorbed Craig's instructions, which included a detailed discussion of the route around the nearby streets. Keen to impress recently appointed senior coach Malcolm Blight, they all ran, if not at Olympic pace, certainly with admirable application and intensity.

However, it wasn't sufficient to impress Craig, who was hell-bent on following through on Blight's determination to make an immediate impact in the 1997 season.

"On this particular run, there was a signpost on the street we were supposed to run around," said Mark Bickley, Crows captain at the time.

"Most of the blokes did precisely that. But a couple took a little path that went behind the signpost. It probably cut off about three metres from a 10km run.

"When we got back Craigy told us, `It's been made known to me that some of you took a shorter route, so, as a result, we are going to train for an extra 30 minutes'. Someone piped up and said, `Hang on a minute, you just said turn at that corner. You didn't say run around the signpost'. Craigy said, `That's not the point. The fact you were looking for a shortcut is the point'.

"It was the same with everything. If you were doing six 400s and somebody trod on a cone, or knocked it, that 400 wouldn't count. We'd have to go back and do it again. There was no argument. Straight away he made his mark."

It's always been the same with Craig, whose fastidious ways are the stuff of legend among former teammates and charges. All the way through his remarkable 36-year journey in football, which began in 1970 when, at 13, he left his family farm on South Australia's Yorke Peninsula to join Norwood's junior squad in Adelaide, he has left an indelible imprint on so many clubs and people.

Now he is trying to do the same on the AFL, having assumed the main coaching role at Adelaide after several years of serving as an assistant to more high-profile football names such as Blight and Gary Ayres.

Craig's elevation to the post to which he has no doubt long aspired is a triumph of diligence and persistence. While others often can coast into jobs on their name in this business, Craig, now 49 and, according to AFL statistician Col Hutchinson, the fourth oldest coaching debutant in AFL history, has had to work his way to the top through the incremental acquisition of knowledge and experience.

He has not been idling away in the past couple of decades, hoping someone might notice him. He's been at the coalface, coaching teams, running fitness programs in Olympic sports, mainly in cycling, as well as football, and studying to a level that few coaches in AFL football would ever dare attempt, let alone reach.

Equipped with a Masters in Education in the sports science area, he spent 15 years working at the South Australian (SAIS) and Australian (AIS) sports institutes, mostly assisting cycling coach Charlie Walsh at home and abroad.

As well, along with his friend and former coach Michael Nunan, he has developed a highly successful business in heart-rate monitors that has expanded overseas.

Although the AFL is as advanced as any elite sporting competition these days, there is some lingering resistance to people seen as over-educated boffins. Football clubs understand the need for sports science but generally they still prefer their coaches to come from a conventional meat-and-spuds background.

On this score, Craig also measures up very well, having played 319 games at three clubs (Norwood, Sturt and North Adelaide) in the South Australian League between 1973 and 1990 and coached Norwood from 1991-95.

"People don't understand this side of him," said Bickley, a 272-game player who captained Adelaide for four seasons, including the 1997-98 premiership double. "They see him as this analytical bloke with a sports science degree. They don't give him credit for his enormous amount of football knowledge and experience."

In an era when concern is expressed about 18-year-old draftees leaving home to pursue a football career, it sounds implausible that more than 30 years ago a child just out of primary school could find himself at a football club, many hundred of kilometres from his family home. But that is what happened to Craig, who was one of 16 of Norwood's country recruits lodging full-time at the club's boarding house in suburban Adelaide, Carmel Court.

The house was run by Ann Carman, mother of Phil, one of the original boarders. For board of $10 a week, they received two meals a day, as well as a cut lunch for school, and had all their washing and ironing done. After football training and homework – Craig went to Norwood High – they whiled away their spare time by the swimming pool or on the table tennis table. The club ensured it kept a watchful eye on the teenagers through John Wynne, a resident who was in his 20s and already playing in the senior side.

"We really respected John. He taught us about life. I remember he taught `Craigy' about the birds and the bees. It was quite funny," said Norwood legend Michael Taylor, who also spent his early years at Carmel Court.

As much as they missed home, they all loved it. "If you want to talk about luck in life, this was it for me. It remains the highlight of my life to get the chance to grow up in that environment," Craig said yesterday.

Although he was the youngest of the group, Craig quickly established his credentials as a future star. A silky ruck-rover and centreman, he blitzed the junior competitions, becoming the first player to win the medals for best-and-fairest in the under-17s and under-19s (in 1971 and 1972). A year later, at 17, he made his senior debut, beginning a playing career at Norwood that would take in two premierships, a best-and-fairest award and 124 games.

From his earliest days, Craig's almost obsessive attention to detail was obvious. Indeed his appearance was as immaculate as his disposal skills. His hair was always perfectly groomed, his guernsey firmly tucked in shorts described by teammates as "scandalously tight" and his socks stood to attention all day.

But beyond this, he also worked harder than most at laying the foundations of a long career.

"He was a superstar junior who got a bit of a reality check when he started playing against men," Taylor said. "But he saw it as a challenge. He was one of the first guys to really get stuck into the weights. We just didn't do that in those days.

"Everything he did, from weights to training and his diet, he was totally committed to being the best he could be. He was different. He had a vision. He knew where he was going. The paths he took were always planned for him to get better and be successful later in life."

Described as a "thrillingly inventive ruck-rover" by the author of Men of Norwood, Mike Coward, Craig soon lost his aura when he crossed to Sturt at the end of the 1979 season. But Craig didn't mind. His objective was to glean experience under the coaching of the South Australian post-war legend Jack Oatey.

Craig, who went on to captain Sturt (in 1985-86), got plenty of first-hand experience of Oatey's famed uncompromising methods, the most memorable of which came when he complained to the club and coach that he was underpaid.

Craig told the story that when he arrived to discuss his beef at a pre-arranged meeting in Oatey's office, the coach had placed a bucket of water on a table.

After telling him his request for a pay rise was denied, Oatey asked him to put his hand in the water. He then asked Craig if there was a vacuum left in the water when he took his hand out. When Craig said no, Oatey told him that the water filled the gap where his hand was, just as would happen if he left the club.

"He was teaching me a very important lesson: that you should never think you are indispensable," said Craig, who cites Oatey, his son Robert, also a famous SA player and coach, and Charlie Walsh as the biggest influences on his career.

Craig eventually left Sturt after 134 games at the end of 1986, seeing out his playing career at North Adelaide (61 games from 1988-90).

By 1991, he had begun his coaching career, at Norwood, and started to employ the lessons he'd learnt from the likes of Oatey.

Although his Norwood charges say he's mellowed from those days, there has never been anything but an eye-popping intensity in his commitment to improvement. As Blight's fitness coach, he oversaw some ground-breaking fitness regimens, many of which have been credited for the club's premiership success in 1997-98.

Well before it became standard, he would take the players to the AIS twice a year – at the end of pre-season and the middle of the season. While hooked up to oxygen and blood-testing machines, they would literally run until they fell off the back of a treadmill.

"Every week at training, we were wearing heart-rate monitors, doing blood-glucose testing and all sorts of other things, trying to work out who had the best physiology to run hard in the midfield and all that. It was all pretty new back then," Bickley said.

Four years ago, West Coast thought so highly of Craig, then in his first season back at the Crows as an assistant to Ayres, that it offered him the job now occupied by John Worsfold. (He rejected it because, he said, he didn't want to leave Adelaide).

However, he was still judged a novice by the wider football audience when he took over from Ayres in the middle of last year.

In reality, he brought with him a deep understanding of the multitudinous requirements of modern elite football. And now, as Adelaide exceeds all pre-season expectations, it is one of his most prominent skills – communication – that is being trumpeted.

"He has a strong message but he doesn't berate players. He instils belief in them. There's no greater example than Nathan Bock," Bickley said. "Before the St Kilda game there was talk he could be dropped. But not only did Craigy pick him, he played him on Nick Riewoldt.

"He went out and played well, and his three weeks since have been fantastic. After that, maybe he said to himself, `I am a real AFL player. I can beat Nick Riewoldt. I can beat anyone. I am a real AFL player'.

"It's the same with Hayden Skipworth. He used to sit on the bench and play four or five minutes in the midfield if someone was injured or needed a rest. This year they've said they are going to play these young blokes in the middle so they can learn what it's all about. The rewards are being seen already."

The reasoning is simple, says Craig. "The big picture we have is to be the best in the competition. The only way we can do that is to give these people the chance to prove themselves," he said.

Craig's subtle powers of persuasion have also been used to great effect on the club's most dynamic player, Andrew McLeod. Last year McLeod was a troubled soul who appeared, at times, to have lost interest in the game. Under Craig, he's back to playing to the level that won him two club champion awards.

However, while Craig may have done Adelaide a huge service by getting him back on track, it should be noted McLeod rendered the club just as big a service when he joined a number of senior players to implore Craig to reject the tempting offer to coach West Coast in 2001.

For this, Adelaide may well prove to be eternally grateful