Welcome to the Family
How a family-first mentality helped guide Adelaide to one of its all-time greatest victories, brought to you by RAA.
Encapsulate
If one word was to encapsulate Adelaide’s Round One win over Geelong on Saturday, then it should be family. The Crows family was back in the stands and in full voice at Adelaide Oval after a year largely locked out due to Covid. “To have our members and supporters there today was a boost, I have no doubt, the stadium was loud and it adds an edge, it was so good to have them back,” Senior Coach Matthew Nicks said post-match. An hour before the game, debutants James Rowe and Sam Berry’s parents were in the rooms for their guernsey presentation and Mitch Hinge’s family was in the stands to watch him play his first game for the Club he supported as a kid.
Before
Minutes before the game as Taylor Walker and Rory Sloane stood at the top of the race to run onto the ground, they each had their two sons in their arms and what Sloane said next had Walker fighting back tears. And over two hours later when the final siren went, Ned McHenry ran towards the pocket and found both his mother who’d made the trip from Geelong and the Adelaide host family who had taken him in when he was drafted and they savoured the moment together. Everyone at Adelaide Oval on Saturday were individuals but collectively they are part of a family. The Crows family, which means different things to different people. For Shane McAdam – who hails from the tiny town of Halls Creek, WA, some 2500km from Adelaide – the Crows family has become his second home.
Shane
Before training at Adelaide Oval on Thursday morning, McAdam stood in the rooms and told his teammates why he had just signed a two-year contract extension. “I just want to say I’ve been loving it here, it’s like a second home to me being at this footy club,” said McAdam, who as he spoke put his right hand over his heart. It was in the chaotic few minutes after the final siren on Saturday when Ned McHenry’s body followed his eyeline towards the Riverbank Stand at Adelaide Oval. He knew who he was looking for and now it was a matter of finding them and when he did, he was overcome with emotion after an unlikely 12-point win over last year’s grand finalist Geelong.
Ned
As McHenry got closer towards the pocket where hours before he had kicked his first goal in AFL football, he picked them out and made a beeline for the boundary where he couldn’t contain his smile. Sitting a few rows from the fence was Adrian Swale who belongs to the host family who McHenry had lived with for 14 months after being drafted by the Crows from Victoria. And next to him was his mother and her partner who had made the trip over from Geelong. “I saw Adrian and he’s from the family who looked after me when I first came over, they were my host family,” McHenry explained. “I knew he’d be in that bay and he’d be sitting with my family because we got them tickets for the game. “I was kind of going over that way for a wander and managed to pick him out in the crowd. In that moment I could see how much that win meant to him and I could tell how pleased he was for me to get that first win.”
Support
On a day of firsts for McHenry it was the first time his mother had seen him play at AFL level due to last year’s border closures and not only had he kicked his first goal in AFL footy, after eight losses he finally got to sing the club song. “Mum hadn’t seen me play either because we were up in the (Queensland) hub or the borders were closed last year,” McHenry said. “I made eye contact with them in the stands after the game. It was crazy, you could see everyone in the crowd was so pleased.” “They (goals) were bloody tough to get last year. “And it’s been a bit of a wait for the win, a relief to finally sing the song, it’s hard to win games at AFL level and you’ve got to enjoy it when you do. “It was just a good all-round day with positive moments and times when guys seemed really connected and up and about.”
Round One Guernsey Presentations
Watch as Sam Berry, James Rowe and Mitchell Hinge receive their Guernseys ahead of their debutant game.
Moments
Taylor Walker and Rory Sloane both played their 200th games last season but Covid protocol meant they couldn’t run out in the milestone games with their kids. But that moment finally arrived on Saturday when the skipper and former skipper led the Crows onto the ground each with their two sons. “I got to run out with my old man back in Broken Hill and footy clubs are made up of people and to have the opportunity to run out with Hugo and Louis, I just loved it,” Walker said. “Just before we ran out, Sloaney grabbed the boys and said to them ‘I hope you understand how special this is for me and Taylor because this is what footy clubs are made of’.
Together
“The bastard made me cry because I thought ‘wow, this is unbelievable’, and to do it with Sloaney was so special, and it might have actually made me play the way I did, I don’t know,” Walker said. “When Hugo was in the rooms watching us warm up he kept yelling out ‘ball, ball’, and when I got up on Sunday I said ‘did you enjoy running out with dad, buddy?’ and he got a big smile on his face and I thought ‘I wonder if he knows what just happened?’ and all this morning all he wanted to do was kick the footy. “I’ve been looking at the photos all day … all day. Hugo and I have been looking at them and so has Ellie, it’s so special. “I love family and footy and they came together on Saturday. “And I’ve had a fair few messages from past players on Sunday saying how proud it made them feel to be a Crow.”
James
For debutant James Rowe, his family was in the rooms for his guernsey presentation before the game but there were also two very special people he hadn’t seen for almost two years sitting in the stands. In the hope he would make his debut in Round One, Rowe’s family arranged for his grandparents – Stephen’s parents Pamela and Alan – to fly to Adelaide from Perth. “I hadn’t seen them for two years and I knew they were coming over this week,” Rowe said. “They live in Mandurah which is about an hour from Perth and last year they watched my whole SANFL finals series on the SANFL live pass online. “But that’s the first time in a long time they’ve seen me play live, and it meant a lot for dad too because I don’t think he (Alan) got to watch my dad’s debut so it was pretty special.”
Past
Rowe’s footy family extended beyond his flesh and blood on Saturday when his dad’s former teammate Matthew Liptak was in the rooms to present him with his No.31 guernsey – the same number Stephen wore at the Club in 1991. “Thirty years ago Rowey and I sat here, watching unfortunately (in Round 1), the first (Crows) team to ever go out, and you don’t know how exciting that was,” Liptak told the playing group pre-game. “It was a privilege for myself and Steve to be part of that generation that built this Club. “And I’m here because now his son is playing for this guernsey, number 31, his dad wore it … Jimmy, grab this jumper and wear it with pride.”
Mitch
Mitch Hinge is one of six children in his family and his dad and three brothers were in the stands to watch him play his first game for Adelaide on Saturday. After three games at Brisbane, Hinge returned to South Australia to play for the Club he supported as a kid in the off-season and got his chance in the most unlikely of circumstances on the weekend. But befitting the contest and the occasion, Hinge tore up the script and came into the game as the medisub in the second quarter when Luke Brown went off with an Achilles injury. He later dislocated his right shoulder but had it put back into place and went back out there to defy the odds and help his team, only for the shoulder to pop out a second time. Again it was put back into place and he mustered what strength he had to fight on.
Focus
“My family loves their footy so they were going to come to the game regardless and it was nice they were able to see a little bit of me play,” Hinge said. “The first time it (shoulder) came out it went back in and I was ready to go back on straight away, the second time it struggled to go back in and I had to go down the race and I had a quick two minute little debrief by myself being pretty flat with it. “But I thought to myself ‘there is no use feeling sorry for myself and I felt a bit bad because we were dropping like flies’. “But it was a ripping game and a pleasure to be a part of, it was a privilege to wear the tri colours in a real game. “I went for the Crowies when I was a kid, it sucked with the shoulder but I’m just so happy I was part of it and the group, it was an unreal feeling at the same time.”
Symmetry
There was a nice symmetry to Hinge’s guernsey presentation as well with former Club captain Nathan van Berlo doing the honours in the rooms pre-game. “My eldest brother John was at the Crows at the same time as VB and they share the exact same date of birth (June 6, 1986), and they were pretty tight when they were at the club together. “So there’s a little bit of history there and I’ve known VB for a little bit. “It was nice, I’ve always looked up to someone like him, he’s a classy person and was a great player. “I know it was a weird one with that sub rule but it was always going to be special to get my first Crows guernsey no matter what the circumstances.”
