The Crows coaches had a brush with Rugby royalty this week, with Australian Wallabies boss Robbie Deans jetting in for a fleeting visit.
As coach of the Canterbury Crusaders, Deans won more Super Rugby titles (three Super 12 and two Super 14) than any other coach.
He also served as an assistant coach to the All Blacks and represented New Zealand in five Tests as a player.
Deans’ visit to West Lakes was organised by Adelaide's new strategy and innovation coach Dean Bailey.
Bailey said he was delighted to have a coach of Deans’ calibre spend a day at the Club.
“I’ve been trying to chase Robbie down since partway through last year when I was still coach at Melbourne,” Bailey told afc.com.au.
“Given his experiences from an educational and coaching point of view, it’s a no-brainer if you can get your hands on someone like that to come to your club because it benefits everyone.
“Robbie was fascinating.
“He got here at 11am and I don’t think he stopped talking until I dropped him off at the airport at 5:45pm.
“We were very fortunate we could get him over here for the day.”
As part of the visit, Deans spent two hours exchanging ideas and experiences with the Crows coaching group.
“Robbie’s a very good sounding board,” Bailey said.
“We threw some curly questions at him and he threw some curly answers at us.
“Robbie spoke about the cultural aspects of when he was at the Crusaders.
“He spoke about the importance of getting players to really want to play for the club, and the benefits of getting them to buy into the football club as early as possible.
“I think we can also pick a few things up in the technical and tactical aspects in regards to how they set up training and opposition analysis.
“He was great and hopefully he’s going to be a good resource for ‘Sando’ to keep bouncing ideas off of.”
Deans also spoke to skipper Nathan van Berlo before sitting down with chief executive Steven Trigg.
“Robbie spoke to ‘VB’ and our leadership development manager Paddy Steinfort about the cultural aspect,” Bailey said.
“Robbie had some really good advice and scenarios for VB to work through.
“VB’s got a little bit of Rugby Union knowledge, so they had a bit of a chat about a couple of the Wallabies players.
“I think VB found the connection really good for him.”
