Crows on back foot on noise

CLUBS try to ignore the outside noise.

For the Adelaide Crows this week, however, it has been like trying to sleep next door to an AC/DC concert.

The incessant reporting of events at their Gold Coast camp in early February, including claims the camp was ‘’cult-like’’, that players were distressed and mentally disturbed, that there were fractures within the playing group and that some were even weighing their futures at the club, finally had coach Don Pyke address the issue yesterday. Which is not ideal a day before the Crows play their grand final opponents of last year in Richmond. But it needed to happen. And Pyke did not totally shoot down the claims.

In one sentence, he said: ‘There was a fair degree of inaccuracy in the reports.

In another, he said: “The reality in our world is that training, whether it be physical or mental, there’s components within the program that are challenging. The reality is, you don’t keep 100 per cent of the people happy, 100 per cent of the time.’’

There’s smoke, but we are not sure how big the fire is and was.

The Crows say there was no fire at all.

But the fact captain Taylor Walker sent a text message to the playing group, which I have seen, tells us the noise was substantial enough for the skipper to react.

The text message read something like this: “Boys, there’s some rumblings around the camp. Don’t talk to anyone, let’s discuss it in the morning. Disappointing, Tex.’’