Former Adelaide star Bryce Gibbs has opened up on the infamous pre-season training camp that ] caused a rift between the players and the Crows' footballing department.
After a horror loss to the Tigers in the 2017 Grand Final, Adelaide players endured a tortuous camp that rocked the playing group, leaving many to be frustrated at the club.
Speaking on theย Greats with Garbyย podcast, Gibbs labeled the camp "a disaster" and revealed that he was placed into a leadership group for the trip.
โThe club said to me โlook weโre putting this camp together, are you keen to get involved? Thereโs going to be different levelsโฆ we want to put you in the leadership oneโ,โ he said.
โI was rocking up to the club and wanted to build good relationships straight away and I thought this could be an opportunity for me to get to know the players quicker.
โThe hard thing was we werenโt told what was going to be involved on this camp. A lot of the details, we didnโt really have any details to be honest. So we went in blind and not knowing what to expect.
โI think their intensions were good and genuine that it was going to help us, but it was obviously a disaster. It affected players in different ways for different reasons.โ
Gibbs believed younger players who wouldn't have experienced as many pre-season camps would have struggled to cope.
โPersonally I was going into my 13th year, Iโd been on that many SAS camps and I thought Iโd seen it all, so I could filter what I thought I could get out of what we were doing and I could ignore the rubbish that was going on,โ he said.
โI was okay with it, I knew some guys were struggling from time to time with it. All you can do is put your arm around them and make sure they are okay and check in with them. It wasnโt until they debrief it later down the track, they probably shouldโve debriefed it earlier than they did just to squash it on the head.
โThe club have put their hand up and said it was a complete miss and if we could do things differently we wouldโve.โ
Gibbs revealed the players soon lost trust with some of the club's decision making.
โWe hopped on a bus on the Gold Coast and ended up in New South Wales. I couldnโt even tell you where we were to be honest. It certainly hurt the group probably more so than I thought it did at the time looking back,โ he said.
โI think the playing group lost a bit of trust with the footy department. Obviously a lot of details we werenโt allowed to know going into the camp, we all had to sign waivers just to say we canโt speak about it after.
โIt was just strange the way it played out and I think the playing group lost trust with some of the decisions the club was making and some of the decisions going forward.โ
