Neil P. Craig (born 11 January 1956) is a former Australian rules footballer, fitness adviser and former coach of the Adelaide Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL).
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[edit] Playing career
Craig played a total of 319 games (and kicked 220 goals) in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL) as well as 11 State of Origin matches for South Australia.
He played 126 games for the Norwood Football Club, debuting as a 17-year-old in 1973. He was a part of their premiership sides in 1975 and 1978, before leaving the club after the 1979 season.[1]
Craig played 134 games for Sturt (captaining the side in 1985 and 1986) between 1980 and 1986 and was also captain of South Australia in 1984.
He moved to North Adelaide, where he finished his career, playing 61 games between 1987 and 1990. At one stage of his career, Craig was pursued by Footscray, a Victorian team in the Victorian Football League (VFL), but declined the offer as he preferred to stay in South Australia.[2] At that time there was a great rivalry between the VFL and SANFL and both competitions considered themselves the best in Australia.
[edit] Post-playing career
In 1991, Craig became the coach of Norwood, a position he held until 1995. In 2002, he was inducted into the South Australian Football Hall of Fame[3]
[edit] Fitness advising
Craig hails from a fitness background and holds a sports science degree.[4]
He has worked with the Australian cycling team at the Olympic Games and with the South Australian Institute of Sport, as a senior sports scientist.[5] He has worked under cycling legend Charlie Walsh at the Australian Cycling Federation (where he was Sports science co-ordinator)[6] and also recruited Walsh as part of the Crows' AFL coaching panel.[7]
[edit] Adelaide Crows
In 1997, Craig took up the position of fitness adviser and assistant coach in the AFL with the Adelaide Crows. He is credited with helping devise the fitness regime that led the Crows to back-to-back premierships in 1997 and 1998 in which players are trained harder to reach peak fitness during finals matches.[8]
Craig left the club in 2000 to help the Australian Olympic cycling team during the Sydney Olympics but return in 2001 to be a assistant coach to Gary Ayres. In late 2001 Neil was the favourite for the West Coast Eagles coaching job in 2002 but he pulled out. He took over the senior coaching position in 2004 as caretaker when Ayres left the club after Round 13. He was then appointed for the 2005 season, leading the Crows to their first minor premiership and a preliminary final in his first full season as a senior coach. Under Craig the Crows reached the finals for five consecutive years, for a finals' coaching record of three wins and six losses. Craig resigned on 25 July 2011 after a 103-point loss to St Kilda.[9] He leaves the club as the longest serving coach in the Crows' history.
[edit] Coaching record
Year Games Won Lost position 2004 9 4 5 12th 2005 25 18 7 4th PF 2006 24 17 7 3rd PF 2007 23 12 11 8th EF 2008 23 13 10 7th EF 2009 24 15 9 5th SF 2010 22 9 13 11th 2011 16 4 12 14th Total 166 92 74
link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Craig
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