Tom Morris: The unsung heroes who rebuilt woeful Crows with 'Moneyball' recruitment plan

The meeting which would change the course of Adelaide Football Club history took place in Don Pyke's office at West Lakes in late July 2019.

The Crows had just lost to Carlton at the MCG. Having won nine and lost nine, they were well in the hunt for finals.

But there were deeper issues at play.

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The list was ageing, and more concerningly, it was fracturing. The ill-fated training camp from 18 months earlier, first revealed by Fox Footy, hadn't been adequately dealt with in the eyes of some.

This is the inside story of Adelaide's careful, deliberate, patient and at times turbulent rise from 18th to 1st in five seasons.

A deep dive into the anatomy of a rebuild, and the people who helped shape it.

THE REASONS BEHIND THE REBUILD

Adelaide began 2019 playing reasonable football, winning eight of its first 13 games before the bye.

But losing four of its next five games prompted the club's list management committee to change course. Whatever success had been forecast after the 2017 Grand Final, was no longer possible.

The era was short-lived, and it was over almost before it began.

In Pyke's office, list boss Justin Reid led a presentation alongside national recruiting manager Hamish Ogilvie and analytics guru Binuk Kodituwakku.

General manager of football Brett Burton, footy director Mark Ricciuto and chief financial officer Shane Smallacombe were also in the room.

There was a healthy debate about the best way forward. Mid table was an acceptable position for a team on the rise, but Reid, Ogilvie and Kodituwakku felt the list was in decline. Pyke, who quit six weeks later, agreed.

The brutal reality was the club's playing group was the second oldest in the AFL and the third most experienced. Based on their modelling, they expected to be at the pointy end of the ladder in 2018 and 2019. That was to be their sweet spot. Instead, they were middling at best, and fading into oblivion at worst.

Most pertinently, there was a hangover of cultural issues from the camp which the club couldn't shake.

"There was so much going on externally, it was impossible to focus on footy," Crows great and Footy Classified panellist Rory Sloane told WWOS this week.

"Whatever Pykey did it wasn't going to be good enough."

And from a pure talent perspective, there was a dearth of high draft picks on the list. By July 2019 the regression since playing in a Grand Final was impossible to ignore.

While Richmond had 16 top 20 national draft picks on their list that year, Adelaide just had nine. And the Tigers boasted seven top 10 selections to the Crows none.

The senior officials acknowledged that while the 2017 cohort was a really even squad, it lacked bulk high end talent. Almost every premiership outfit was flushed with players who were taken towards the top of the draft, the presentation noted.

Brisbane's systematic, slow rise up the ladder to that point was built off the back of draft selections. And that was the template to aspire to, Reid and his list team noted in Pyke's office. Carlton's commitment to top draftees was also mentioned.

Eventually, Burton, Pyke and the rest of Adelaide's hierarchy agreed a full scale rebuild was required. CEO Andrew Fagan took some convincing, given the likelihood it would take somewhere between four and six years to compete for a flag.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT

Once it was agreed that Adelaide's first ever full scale rebuild was required, they estimated it would take two years to turn the list over. Modelling was presented which showed the success rate of top 25 draft selections.

Top three picks were seen as having a 70 per cent chance of becoming star players, picks 3-10 were 50 per cent, 10-20 were a 35 per cent chance, and teenagers taken in the 20-25 range were a 20 per cent chance of turning into stars.

In the six drafts between 2019 and 2024, Adelaide accumulated 10 top 25 picks. The pivot was solid, but stopped short of dismissing the value of experience to help guide young players through.

"Binuk (Kodituwakku) in particular, he's so smart," Sloane said.

"He's a freak. Moneyball sort of stuff. When I heard him speak about it, I was like 'wow'. It was so detailed. So I knew a lot of thought and effort went into it which helped me agree with the club's direction."

Kodituwakku, who has Sri Lankan heritage and grew up in Perth, now lives in the USA where he runs Duke's football program. Like the Crows, they are also just emerging out of a rebuild having lost a coach two years ago.

Ogilvie had an excellent success rate with top draft picks, so there was confidence he'd be able to take advantage of a swell of them.

Even now, Ogilvie has really only missed on three out of 13 top picks: An excellent strike rate.

Scout Richard Taylor was hired from Richmond in 2021 and complemented Ogilvie's skillset. Having cherry picked Liam Baker, Kane Lambert, Nathan Broad and Jason Castagna to help the Tigers win three premierships, he played important roles in bringing Mark Keane back to the club and moving up for Dan Curtin.

The plan was to have as many throws at the dart board as possible in a four-year window - understanding it's impossible to register a 100% strike rate - and get as many of the young players to 50 games as quickly as they could.

Another key cog joined the club full-time at the end of 2019: data scientist Dean Dagan.

"He might be the smartest person in footy," a source who knows him well said.

Dagan, who arrived from Pointsbet, builds apps that the club uses to evaluate picks and players. His advanced modelling techniques were ahead of their time in 2020. The Crows rely on his expertise with every list decision they make.

SELLING THE DREAM

Next came the all important public relations messaging. Adelaide fans were not used to being told they wouldn't challenge for finals, but that's what needed to happen.

The word 'rejuvenate' was preferred to 'rebuild'.

"I never liked the term rebuild," Sloane said.

"It provided an excuse to not perform for those coming years. And I was always in a hurry to get better. But in hindsight they did an excellent job framing it."

Adelaide knew a crucial component in committing to the rebuild was to own the language around it. In doing so, they allowed themselves time to improve and plot a path forwards.

Not everyone loved the idea of going down the bottom of the ladder, but in the eyes of Reid, there was no other option as the club splintered across 2018 and 2019.

"The culture was better at 0-13 in 2020 than it was at 13-8 in 2019," said an Adelaide player.

MASS CHANGES

Adelaide's 2019 season limped to the finish line, losing four of its last five games and winning just twice after the mid-season bye to miss finals for the second straight season.

Following Pyke's exit, Jason Dunstall's review saw Brett Burton blindsided and sacked, while Scott Camporeale also departed as Matthew Nicks was appointed.

The trading of Eddie Betts, Alex Keath, Hugh Greenwood, Sam Jacobs and Josh Jenkins allowed the club to transition from the second oldest in 2019 to the fifth youngest in 2020.

Betts and Keath were seen as difficult players to let go given their high character, but their exits helped reposition the salary cap.

Rory Laird, Tom Lynch, Brodie Smith, Tex Walker, Rory Sloane and Matt Crouch were told they were required senior figures to help usher through the next wave.

Walker stepped away from a leadership role post-season.

"Simon Goodwin helped teach us the ropes as kids and then it became our turn to pass the baton on," Sloane said.

"Lynch and Tex especially deserve a lot of credit for the work they did in the 2019-2021 era."

Aside from bringing in elite young talent, another key objective was to pro scout undervalued players from rivals.

In 2019, Ben Keays and Billy Frampton arrived, while Mitch Hinge came at the end of 2020 and Mark Keane three years after that.

The view from some inside Adelaide was that the club had lost control of the media narrative around the camp. While a select few players were unhappy, the camp was not the disaster it was made out to be.

"Brand came before people and there was so much collateral damage," a staffer in that time period said to WWOS.

The other, more widespread perspective was that the camp tore the heart out of a club on the cusp of sustained success. And either directly or indirectly it cost Pyke, Burton and Fagan their positions.

THE REBUILD, CONTINUED…

Adelaide remained resolute that the only way to rebuild the core of the club, both culturally and from a list perspective, was to do so with no shortcuts. And Dunstall agreed in his report.

The philosophy of patience and club wide unity was formatted onto a one page document, which was easy to digest for the board and remains the framework for each phase of the list management strategy.

Nicks lost his first 13 games as coach in 2020, in part - according to Sloane - because the progress they made learning a new game plan was halted by the Covid lockdown.

"We actually played well in Round 1," Sloane said.

"We needed to double down on the game plan. We had 10 weeks off and when we came back we half reverted to Pyke's game plan. And even then we weren't allowed to train as one big group.

"It took us until the end of the year to regain our form. And by then we played some more solid footy."

Adelaide finished last, reaffirming how quickly things had unravelled.

In came Riley Thillthorpe, Luke Pedlar and Sam Berry via the draft.

Draft recaps are grossly overplayed, but Thillthorpe is quite clearly the best product from the 2020 first round.

PRO SCOUTING

And while seven wins was an improvement in 2021, the big moves came post-season, when Jordan Dawson shocked Sydney by announcing he wanted to be traded to the Crows.

Having watched him play as a midfielder as a teenager, Adelaide believed it could turn Dawson from a flanker and occasional winger into an AFL-hardened on-baller. Via a zoom call they sold him the vision and convinced him to join the club.

It was a huge get, but the most difficult part was satisfying the grumpy Swans, who couldn't quite believe they were losing a player they wanted to keep. Ultimately a bunch of picks in the 20s and 40s were traded to Melbourne in return for their future first pick, which was used to secure Dawson.

Bang. It would prove to be the most consequential trade period work Reid and his team did as part of the rebuild.

It also meant the Crows didn't touch their own first rounder, which became Josh Rachele with Pick 6. Jake Soligo was then selected with Pick 36. The end of 2021 was a resounding success.

Most rounds Reid would watch up to six games of football live, from AFL to state leagues and all over the country.

The rebuild continued in 2022, but again, the most significant moment occurred in the trade period, when Izak Rankine arrived from Gold Coast.

Two years in a row a team well outside finals contention had lured quality talent to the club. Rivals couldn't believe it.

Dawson and Rankine types had traditionally preferred teams in the top four, not lowly sides mid-rebuild with little prospect of immediate success.

Essendon made a big play for Rankine, but ultimately it was an otherwise nondescript Round 15 game between Gold Coast at Port Adelaide which proved pivotal in the Crows pursuit.

After the two-point loss at Adelaide Oval, Rankine had his family and friends in the Gold Coast rooms. Those close to him believe that was the moment when he clarified in his own head to return to South Australia.

Wayne Milera was also involved in the play to lure him, and it worked.

Various components conspired against Adelaide in 2023 - not least umpiring blunders which had the Crows seething. But in the post-season, they traded up to nab Dan Curtin.

The building blocks were in place.

THE COACH

In March 2024, Nicks was handed a two-year contract extension.

It was a bold move. He'd won just 29 of 81 games.

"We have seen the on-field improvement and he has developed a game plan we firmly believe will stand up to the pressures of finals footy," Crows chief Tim Silvers said in a statement.

Don't be fooled though, this was a pure public relations play.

In order to give Nicks and Adelaide the best possible chance of succeeding, the Crows board decided that he needed contractual breathing space.

He had minimal protections should he lose his job. A straight shooter, Nicks was well aware very few coaches have the luxury of seeing a rebuild through from beginning to end.

Nicks survived 2024 - despite regressing to 15th on the ladder - but entered 2025 knowing full well that failure to play finals would see his contract for 2026 terminated.

"After six years of not playing finals the pressure comes if you don't have an understanding of what's going on within the four walls," Nicks said on Footy Classified earlier this year.

Last October, the Crows pulled off a huge coup, convincing Murray Davis to come to West Lakes as Coaching Director.

The role was designed to have Davis coach the coaches. Jack Hombsch - who is possibly the youngest assistant in the AFL - has benefited from his guidance. So have Scott Burns and Nathan Van Berlo. Those in the know rave about Davis, while the Lions lamented his exit.

Alex Neal-Bullen, James Peatling and Isaac Cumming were excellent pick-ups in late 2024, adding to the depth created across the first five years of the rebuild. Their acquisitions also solidified the view that Adelaide was now somewhat of a destination club again.

Neal-Bullen in particular was a significant win, given his only preference was to head home to South Australia after a stint at Melbourne. Port Adelaide was never really at the table. Culturally, there was arguably no more important player at the Demons from 2021-2023. It's why he was given a send-off game at the end of 2024, even though he was contracted.

HUNTING A FLAG

Now, one win away from the club's first preliminary final since 2017, Adelaide is at the pointy end of the list rejuvenation. The margins are smaller and the stakes are higher.

Burton, who was part of the initial meeting in Pyke's office before losing his job two months later, is delighted the club is back in the hunt for a flag.

"It's fantastic for the Crows that they are going so well," Burton said to WWOS this week.

"Matthew Nicks and the management team have done a great job putting the list together. What we see in successful clubs is to back people in and stay the course, despite the outside pressures.

"It literally just takes time for lists to come together. It's great to see the Crows doing well and back up the top.

"I'll be there on Friday night with my kids."

When Adelaide was last in the window, it was a fleeting visit. It was a tease.

This time the rebuild has given Adelaide the fundamental framework to believe it can contend for years to come, regardless of whether Friday night leads to a preliminary final or a straight set exit.