"Weak, poor club": Nicks sacking claims expose Adelaide flaw

Amid reports Matthew Nicks will be sacked as coach of the Adelaide Crows if the team fails to progress in the 2026 finals series, Garry Lyon and Tim Watson have questioned how weak a club has to be for such information to be leaked.

Now into his seventh year as a head coach, this year marks only the second time Nicks' side have made the finals with the club not registering a win at the business end of the season since reaching the 2017 Grand Final.

Now, with a huge elimination showdown against the Western Bulldogs this weekend, it seems defeat could spell the end of the road for the coach.

“If Adelaide loses to the Western Bulldogs this Saturday, then I expect Matthew Nicks will lose his job,” SEN’s Tom Morris reported on The Agenda Setters on Monday night.

“Now the belief at the Crows is they like and respect Matthew Nicks, they want Matthew Nicks to be the guy, but ultimately they believe they can’t absorb a seventh-straight season straight without a finals victory.

“Now they’re also acutely aware that they can’t take Nicks into 2027 with (zero) finals victory under his belt.

“This is not my opinion, this is my information.”

Nicks is currently contracted until the end of 2027 but reports about his job being at risk don’t suggest a happy back room in Lyon and Watson’s opinions.

“Tom wouldn’t be as definitive as that if he didn’t know something,” Lyon said on SEN Breakfast. “It ramps up the pressure on Nicks publicly and he is probably feeling the pressure already.

“They have sat back, gone straight sets last year which was always going to elicit a strong response, you hope they learn from it. They’ve had a weekend off now and no excuses. They should win this weekend, and this could become a moot point

“What sort of footy club is putting this kind of message out five days before a big final? What sort of club are you running?

“Who is in a position to say if he doesn’t win we sack him?”

For Watson, the fact the information has been made public does nothing but expose a weak club.

“How much weight do you put on the coach being able to assemble what you need for a flag,” he said. “They have not fixed that part of their game.

“Nicks has been there seven years, that’s long enough to know what you have and what you need for a flag. “They fell badly in both games last year.

“Do I think they can win it this year? No.

“A poor club leaks this kind of thing, a weak club if they leak like this.”

Lyon and Watson then debated if Nicks being ousted suggests the club has identified another coaching option.

“Let’s look at Goodwin, Simpson, Longmire, Buckley; there are options out there of coaches who have taken their teams further than Nicks has been able to,” Watson added.