making a statement only days out from the Crows first final<\/a>, had an impact on the \u201cecosystem\u201d of the locker room.<\/p>\n\u201cThe ecosystem of a locker room, let alone a football club, is finely tuned so I\u2019ve got no doubt that something like that, it doesn\u2019t just impact Izak Rankine \u2026 it does impact on the connection with your teammates. And some of them would have been disappointed with him \u2013 with Izak, and some of them would have been disappointed for him,\u201d Buckley said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then, all of that together, it just wasn\u2019t long enough to be able to reconcile it, to be able to regather and go back and be able to present as your authentic best self as a team \u2013 and that was evident in the last two matches in particular.\u201d<\/p>\n
Had the Crows won through to the grand final after the loss to Collingwood in finals week one, Rankine would be eligible to play.<\/p>\n
Now he\u2019ll miss the first match of season 2026.<\/p>\n
Suspended star Izak Rankine was in the rooms after the Crows bowed out of the finals race.Source: FOX SPORTS<\/p>\n
When asked if the absence of Rankine proved costly, Crows coach Matthew Nicks admits the \u201cdynamic\u201d of the group changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat it did do, is it did change the dynamic of our group,\u201d he said in his press conference. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is my opinion \u2014 he\u2019s one of the best players in the game. So, I think if any team lose their best player, it becomes quite a challenge to replace that. <\/p>\n
\u201cSome of our younger guys stepped up and showed that they can play at the level. But the challenge we had was filling that void that Isak\u2019s had there for us there all year. That\u2019s purely on-field, I don\u2019t feel like it affected us away from footy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nicks conceded the straight sets finals exit would leave \u201ca pretty big scar\u201d on his players, with the club failing to win in a single quarter in those two matches.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo home finals and they didn\u2019t win a single quarter \u2013 it has a bitter aftertaste to it,\u201d Fox Footy\u2019s Gerard Whateley said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a bad ending and it\u2019s been a pretty average month really for Adelaide,\u201d Ricciuto added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Premiership Crow Mark Ricciuto admits the absence of star Izak Rankine \u201cdidn\u2019t help\u201d Adelaide\u2019s title push, as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[9126,64,63,94902,9203,94906,94903,47404,1818,65436,94905,82654,12735,13213,61,54902,12413,94901,8401,12149,3465,28961,11182,16712,42719,668,94904,93959,94908,85,76104,93970,94907],"class_list":["post-138262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-adelaide-crows","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ban-verdict","tag-catherine-healey","tag-crow-mark-ricciuto","tag-crows-concern","tag-crows-star","tag-david-king","tag-defining-moment","tag-devastating-finals-exit","tag-finals-exit","tag-finals-race","tag-finals-series","tag-gerard-whateley","tag-home-finals","tag-homophobic-slur","tag-homophobic-slur-ban","tag-jack-ginnivan","tag-jason-dunstall","tag-leigh-montagna","tag-lion-jonathan-brown","tag-locker-room","tag-matthew-nicks","tag-minor-premiers","tag-press-conference","tag-rooms-post-match","tag-sets-finals-exit","tag-single-quarter","tag-sports","tag-straight-sets","tag-straight-sets-finals","tag-suspended-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}