Delusion has set in at the Crows

The Adelaide Football club need to start listening and stop deflecting.

They must get their own house in order.

The offseason departures of senior coach Don Pyke, Assistant Scott Camporeale and Football manager Brett Burton was supposed to right the ship.

But still, the Crows are off course.

That's’ why, simply selecting a few fall guys was never going to be the quick fix the club’s hierarchy had hoped for.

But unlike the past, the clubs huge fan base is no longer believing what the club tell them and they want cultural change.

Only a fortnight ago the clubs greatest player Andrew McLeod broke ranks to question the club about feeling “unwelcome” and challenged the club’s leadership on his own podcast.

Instead of embracing him and taking his feedback on board and admitting to past mistakes, they tried to discredit his argument and change the narrative by suggesting he hasn't ever voiced concerns privately, took issue with the past players group and painted McLeod as bitter.

This backfired big time, especially when McLeod decided to set the record straight by reiterating that his comments are solely directed at the leadership of the club.

This was quickly embraced by disgruntled Crows fans, who finally feel like they have a voice.

On the field the Crows remain winless and are fresh of a record 75-point drubbing to cross town rival Port Adelaide.

They lacked fight and the will to compete. And all of a sudden rookie coach Matthew Nicks is under the pump and now having to coach his players on effort and not tactics.

An indictment of a playing group that needs an overhaul, where there appears no quick fix.

But to make matters worse only four days after their Showdown shellacking, club football director and past great Mark Ricciuto went into detail on his radio program why former Crows Patrick Dangerfield, Charlie Cameron, Jake Lever, Mitch McGovern, Hugh Greenwood (Gold Coast) and Alex Keath (Western Bulldogs) left the club, he revealed in some cases for more money.

He also chose to reveal confidential salaries players like Alex Keath (Bulldogs), Mitch McGovern (Carlton) and Jake Lever (Melbourne) are earning.

This invoked a strong rebuttal by former teammate and now Melbourne senior coach Simon Goodwin, calling it “wrong, unfair and just not right”.

McGovern’s manager Colin Young also fired back immediately saying “The reasons Mitch left the Crows was because of the (Gold Coast) camp and the Adelaide Football department, and that's it, again with Charlie (Cameron) it was not the money, let’s just leave it at that”.

Ricciuto’s love for his club is obvious, but his conflict of interest is clear for all to see.

He failed to disclose why McGovern was traded 12 months after signing a lucrative three-year deal to stay at the Crows, when they could have held him to his contract.

Nor did he reveal the clubs list management strategy, when they offered Eddie Betts (already in his 30’s) an extension ahead of time and Josh Jenkins a five-year deal - both on big money.

Yet the Crows are now paying at least half of their contracts to play elsewhere.

Further, why did Adelaide give up the farm to acquire Bryce Gibbs from Carlton on a four year deal on big money. Yet the player can’t consistently perform to a high enough level to lock down a position in clubs best 22, and is repeatedly dropped, yet still holds a contract for the 2021 season.

In list management you can’t pick and choose.

Only he can reveal why he felt compelled to orbit the Crows back into the AFL headlines with inappropriate comments about other club’s player salaries as a current Crows director.

It has only damaged his club further.

Once again highlighting his club hierarchy’s inability to read the room.

Maybe Andrew McLeod was right saying “for me this is the exact problem with the club, the lack of genuine willingness to listen, self-reflect and improve”

And while he was ridiculed for being a bitter and temperamental soul, maybe he was just right.

But if the club thought off the back of an independent review that flicking Pyke, Burton and Camporeale would suffice, yet the three key pillars that governed the club through the same period in Chairman Rob Chapman, football director Mark Ricciuto and CEO Andrew Fagan remain - then delusion has really set in.

Its time for real change.