I’ve sometimes wondered how fans of cellar-dwellers do what they do - turn up, week after week, to watch a drubbing. Ha ha, losers!
Damn, the boot is on the other foot now. So what should we do for the rest of the season?
Maybe we should focus on draft picks. The Crows will play nine more games this year, including against fellow train-wrecks Port Adelaide, Brisbane Lions and Gold Coast. If we lose every game we will most likely finish bottom and have our highest draft pick for more than a decade. It would be pick five, which is not what you want when you finish bottom but still not bad.
On the other hand, I don’t want to watch the Crows lose nine more games in a row. I don’t want to watch games like the one against the Cats on Sunday, which started with twin errors by the two Thompsons and never improved. I don’t want to see the once manically competitive Crows playing like zombies for another nine games.
I don’t want to listen to the screech of the critics for another nine weeks, either. Craigy is getting mangled from all sides. It won’t stop until either the Crows start winning (it won’t stop even then, but it will dampen down), or Craigy gets the chop.
But one thing a supporter should never do is abandon hope. This is new territory for Crows’ fans, but it is not the time to walk away. A show of strength from supporters will help the players. It will be good for their self-esteem and ultimately for their footy.
So here’s what I plan to do for the remainder of the season: turn up to games; turn down the volume on the hysteria; and keep demanding improvement.
I do not subscribe to the view that the Crows’ list is substandard. Yes, it is built on low draft picks and rookie-listed players (twelve of this year’s playing list are former rookies, by my count), but I believe that ordinary players can become good and good players can become great with perseverance and good coaching. The biggest problem at the moment is a catastrophic collapse in self-belief. Turning this around is perhaps the biggest challenge of all.
Not every player will get better, even in the best environment. The weakest will be culled at the end of the season, as ritual demands. They should be replaced by youngsters who are speedy of foot and nimble of mind. The Crows need more good decision-makers.
Such players will be few in the compromised draft, however, even if the Crows finish 17th. Mostly, then, the improvement will have to come from within. And I want to see signs of it in the next nine weeks.
However hard this season is for fans, it must be harder for the players and hardest of all for Craigy. I admire his strength of character and his perseverance. I don’t know how long he will survive, but he is a fighter. He has never faced a bigger test. He has nine games to regroup the group, nine games to restore self-belief, and nine games, perhaps, to save his job.
As supporters, we can turn our backs now and come back when the going gets good again, or we can stick tight. The next nine games are a test for us, too.
Sarrey’s first novel, Prohibited Zone, featuring a fictional ex-Crows player, is now on sale in bookstores.
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