“Not a day goes by we don’t think about Walshy…”
As the Adelaide Football Club prepares for just its second finals campaign in six years, veteran midfielder Richard Douglas opens up about life – and loss – as a Crow.
Even nine years and 166 games on, Richard Douglas remembers his third game of AFL football fondly.
“It was a qualifying final against Freo,” he tells InDaily.
“I was only 19 (but) it’s still one of my favourite games to be a part of.”
While the stats sheet showed he garnered only eight possessions as Adelaide charged from behind to beat the Dockers at Football Park, there was a moment off-field that marked the first-year Crow as a player to watch.
“I think at the time we were down at three quarter time,” Douglas reflects.
“The boys were a bit flat…we might have conceded the last few goals. I think I was on the bench, and I just thought the guys’ heads had dropped a bit. I said, ‘Come on boys we’re only down a goal or two…we can turn it around’.”
It was reported at the time as the young upstart giving his more decorated teammates a fair old spray, but Douglas insists it was “just a bit of encouragement…I’m not sure about a spray”.
Either way, the senior players lifted, aided by a strong wind at their back.
“Jason Torney kicked a couple of goals in the last quarter,” he recalls.
The Crows won by 30 but the fledgling Douglas, then a bit-part small forward, was dropped for the subsequent losing Preliminary Final against West Coast. He has played only five major round matches since.
“That was a long time ago,” he says now.
“I probably just thought finals would come round each year, but I’ve learned over the last few years that’s not the case. It’s hard to get into the eight.”
Hard enough, indeed, just breaking into a then-formidable Adelaide line-up in his early years, as form and injury conspired against him.
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“I guess being a young guy in the first three or four years, you just leave it to the older guys to drive the culture…you think it will just happen each year,” he muses.
His breakout season in 2010 saw him win the club’s best and fairest, but finals wouldn’t come round again for two more years. And when the Crows fell five points short of a Grand Final berth, that ubiquitous, uniquely South Australian football hype had them marked for big things. But big things never came.
“I think after 2012, that next year we certainly just thought we’d rock up and it was going to happen, but it only happens because of a lot of hard work,” Douglas says.
“It starts with preseason, with being consistent week in, week out. We had a talented team in those years, particularly 2013-14, but I think we were still young.
“I think our game style has certainly improved defensively.”
"“I probably just thought finals would come round each year, but I’ve learned over the last few years that’s not the case.”"
Much of that improvement can be ascribed to the influence of the man many at the club thought would lead them from the wilderness.
If expectations were raised when Adelaide heaped controversy on controversy, poaching Phil Walsh from cross-town rival Port Adelaide after sacking his predecessor Brenton Sanderson, the hype went into overdrive after the early results showed a marked improvement on the field. Big wins over finals-bound North Melbourne and the improving Collingwood revamped the familiar Adelaide hysteria, but Douglas insists there was no talk then of finals, nor Grand Finals.
“I don’t think we really thought about it, to be honest,” he says.
“We knew we’d improved, we’d had some really good results. Everything was new; we had a new coach, a new captain, a new game style…we had a lot to learn and loved coming in each day and improving, seeing how far the year could take us.”
"“Not a day goes by you don’t think about the Great Man, and the impact he’s had on each and every one of us…I’m sure he’d be proud.”"
Adelaide will play finals this year, but tragically Walsh won’t be there to guide them in just their second campaign in six years. Since the Crows mentor was killed on July 3, allegedly stabbed in his home by his son Cy, the intensity of the media attention has been as unrelenting as the public outpouring of grief and sympathy. The team, under interim coach Scott Camporeale, has been resilient, winning six of its subsequent nine games, but Douglas admits the ordeal has worn him down. Not just dealing with the grief, but being asked about it by people like me. Every time.
“I think I’d be lying if I said no,” he concedes.
“But what we’ve been very good at is staying busy, we’ve been able to get around each other (and) we’ve had a lot of support networks. We’re a close group now.”
Nonetheless, even now, “there’s moments when you have your bad days, and times you have your good days”.
“But not a day goes by you don’t think about the Great Man, and the impact he’s had on each and every one of us,” says Douglas.
“I’m sure he’d be proud.”
In football, we talk about teams ‘rebuilding’. Sometimes it takes a season or two; sometimes it appears an eternal work in progress. For Adelaide, there was a rebuilding that began after that Friday morning in July, and continues this week as the club prepares to jet off to the MCG to face the Western Bulldogs in an Elimination Final. For many players, it will remain an ongoing process well after they have hung up the boots. Regrouping. Healing. Picking up the pieces.
“It was certainly week by week in the early days…after what happened it was more day by day,” recalls Douglas.
“It was just such a traumatic thing that no-one had thought could happen…we were getting around each other, but football wasn’t really that important for a few weeks there.”
As if to emphasise that, the scheduled Round 14 match against Geelong was called off, the premiership points shared like a bond of grief between two clubs Walsh had touched.
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Then there was that game against the Eagles in Perth, where the Crows showed spirit despite a nine-goal loss, and heart as they huddled in the centre of Domain Stadium, grown men weeping in an outpouring of pent-up shock and sorrow.
“Once we got through that West Coast game, that was probably the lowest point for me,” says Douglas.
“But it cleared our minds a bit more…the Showdown (a nailbiting three-point victory against a fast finishing Power) gave us a lot of belief, and from there things really started to click.”
The Crows had three more wins and two losses on the way to a finals berth few thought possible in the days after Walsh’s death.
“The season really starts now,” says Douglas.
“We want to be the one that holds the Cup up.”
From seventh spot, that would be some feat: it would demand four wins on the road, something no club has achieved in finals. Not even the Crows of 1998, the last side to win a flag from outside the top four, who were nonetheless soundly beaten in the first week of finals under a format since discarded by the AFL.
But Douglas says there is confidence, and passion, in the group.
“I think we’re in really good form,” he says.
“We’re not going to get any fitter now (so) it’s all about recovery. We know our game style holds up…I think going into finals you need that really strong defensive game.”
And personally, the midfielder is returning to peak form after a random spate of injury frustrations – a ruptured scrotum saw him sidelined last season, he missed weeks early this year with a foot strain and then, just as the curse seemed banished, he was rushed to hospital last month for surgery to remove his appendix.
“I didn’t really know what the recovery time was with that (but) I was only overnight in hospital,” he says.
“Once I got out up and about I was moving quite well, but I was a bit sore at the time.”
Now though, Douglas claims he “can honestly say I haven’t felt better all season”, and is “personally in a really good spot”, having recommitted to the club for three more years mid-season.
And, once again, that uniquely-Adelaide hype is building. Captain Tex Walker, the boy from Broken Hill, awkwardly spouts his well-worn mantras about “elite standards” and “KPIs”, while the nightly television news reports incessant updates about fans flocking for tickets, and airlines commandeering extra planes to Melbourne.
“It’s exciting, you know?” beams Douglas.
“It’s something you want to be a part of: the whole state gets behind it, there’s more attention at training, more attention in the media…it’s great for our young guys to experience that, who haven’t before. We encourage all our young guys not to shy away from it.”
This time, though, Douglas is the finals veteran, nine years and 166 games on from that Qualifying Final against Fremantle at AAMI Stadium. Of the current crop, only Scott Thompson and Nathan Van Berlo have played more major round matches for the Crows.
He’s hopeful the young talent that will be on show against the Dogs on Saturday night now have not merely the talent, but that special bond, forged in grief and resilience, to push on with finals success in coming years, however it ends in 2015.
“I do (think we can), but I probably thought that in 2012, so you don’t want to think about that too much,” he muses.
“Again, that’s falling into the trap of thinking it’s just going to happen.
“But we’ve got a good list, we’re in a good place mentally, we have good people in the right positions…but you’ve got to keep improving, you know? We’ve got to keep moving forward.”
It’s a journey that began late last year under Walsh’s watch, and reconvened – after that fateful fork in the road – with Camporeale at the helm. Douglas is confident about where the road leads, and convinced his fallen mentor would be proud of the strides his charges have made without him.
“We want to win a final,” he says.
“It’s exciting.”
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