A united club mentality is crucial to the success of the Crows’ SANFL side, says inaugural State League coach Heath Younie.
For the first time in Adelaide’s 23-year history, the Crows will field a standalone State League side in the SANFL competition. To assist the Club in fielding an additional team each week, a squad of 25 development players have been training at West Lakes once a week since November last year.
With such a diverse mix of players jostling for selection in two Adelaide teams each week, Younie said cohesion between the groups was paramount.
“It’s really important that we get together as a group, both our AFL listed players and our development squad, to make sure that we create that club environment,” Younie said.
Younie can relate to his development squad players. Younie was rookie-listed by West Coast in 1997 before moving to Victoria to play in the Kangaroos VFL side.
“I had that experience at North Melbourne especially where I was a development player,” Younie said.
“The experience I had with that is the importance of having team unity, and making sure that we have that club feel.
“It’s really important that we get together as a group often, both our AFL listed players and our development squad, to make sure that we create that club environment.”
Many AFL-listed Crows have taken it upon themselves to welcome their new protégées to the Club, attending development squad trainings several times over the summer.
“Having our AFL players come out to help and pass on knowledge and direct some of our development guys through training has been really good and really positive,” Younie said.
“On the flipside, we’ve had four or five development players [come out and] be part of the AFL training.”
Younie said the youngsters were rapt with the experience of training with the main group, but that they also understand there’s a long road ahead before they reach AFL standard.
“The boys have loved it,” Younie said.
“It’s really beneficial for those guys because some of them haven’t been exposed to AFL training. We can talk about it, discuss it with them about intensity, structures and what it takes to play AFL footy, but until you feel it for yourself you don’t really understand it.
“Their feedback has been, ‘Geez, it’s quick and the ball doesn’t stay in the area for that long’, but since then we’ve seen some changes in the way those development players have trained with us during the week.”
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