Neil Craig

Neil Craig
Personal information
Full name	Neil P. Craig
Date of birth	11 January 1956 (1956-01-11) (age 55)
Playing career1
Years	Club	Games (Goals)
1973–1979 1980–1986 1987–1990	Norwood Sturt North Adelaide	126 134 61
Coaching career3
Years	Club	Games (W–L–D)
2004–2011	Adelaide	166 (92–74–0)
1 Playing statistics to end of 1990 season . 3 Coaching statistics correct as of 2011.
Career highlights
South Australian Football Hall of Fame inductee Norwood Football Club premiership player 1975/78

Neil P. Craig (born 11 January 1956) is a former Australian rules footballer, fitness adviser and former coach of the Adelaide Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). As of 2012, he will be based in a new role as the Director of Sports Performance at the Melbourne Football Club. Similar to Brendan McCartney, Neil Craig has no experience as a professional AFL player.

Playing career

Craig played a total of 319 games (and kicked 220 goals) in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL) as well as 11 State of Origin matches for South Australia.

He played 126 games for the Norwood Football Club, debuting as a 17-year-old in 1973. He was a part of their premiership sides in 1975 and 1978, before leaving the club after the 1979 season.^[1]

Craig played 134 games for Sturt (captaining the side in 1985 and 1986) between 1980 and 1986 and was also captain of South Australia in 1984.

He moved to North Adelaide, where he finished his career, playing 61 games between 1987 and 1990. At one stage of his career, Craig was pursued by Footscray, a Victorian team in the Victorian Football League (VFL), but declined the offer as he preferred to stay in South Australia.^[2] At that time there was a great rivalry between the VFL and SANFL and both competitions considered themselves the best in Australia.

Post-playing career

In 1991, Craig became the coach of Norwood, a position he held until 1995. In 2002, he was inducted into the South Australian Football Hall of Fame^[3]

Fitness advising

Craig hails from a fitness background and holds a sports science degree.^[4]

He has worked with the Australian cycling team at the Olympic Games and with the South Australian Institute of Sport, as a senior sports scientist.^[5] He has worked under cycling legend Charlie Walsh at the Australian Cycling Federation (where he was Sports science co-ordinator)^[6] and also recruited Walsh as part of the Crows' AFL coaching panel.^[7]

Adelaide Crows

In 1997, Craig took up the position of fitness adviser and assistant coach in the AFL with the Adelaide Crows. He is credited with helping devise the fitness regime that led the Crows to back-to-back premierships in 1997 and 1998 in which players are trained harder to reach peak fitness during finals matches.^[8]

Craig left the club in 2000 to help the Australian Olympic cycling team during the Sydney Olympics but return in 2001 to be an assistant coach to Gary Ayres. In late 2001 Neil was the favourite for the West Coast Eagles coaching job in 2002 but he pulled out. He took over the senior coaching position in 2004 as caretaker when Ayres left the club after Round 13. He was then appointed for the 2005 season, leading the Crows to their first minor premiership and a preliminary final in his first full season as a senior coach. Under Craig the Crows reached the finals for five consecutive years, for a finals' coaching record of three wins and six losses. Craig resigned on 25 July 2011 after a 103-point loss to St Kilda.^[9] He leaves the club as the longest serving coach in the Crows' history.

Melbourne Demons

After his resignation as Adelaide coach, it was implied at the All Australian Awards in 2011 that Craig had retired from football, however as of 29 September 2011, he signed a deal claiming position of Director of Sports Performance at the Melbourne Football Club, beginning in Season 2012. His primary role is to mentor and assist the players of the club, in particular the young players, and to mentor and assist the other assistant coaches of the Melbourne Football Club, including being the right hand man of newly appointed senior coach Mark Neeld.

Coaching record

The following below is the coaching record of Neil Craig as coach of Adelaide.

Year	Games	Won	Lost	position
2004	9	4	5	12th
2005	25	18	7	4th PF
2006	24	17	7	3rd PF
2007	23	12	11	8th EF
2008	23	13	10	7th EF
2009	24	15	9	5th SF
2010	22	9	13	11th
2011	16	4	12	14th
Total	166	92	74

References

1. ^ Full Points Footy
2. ^ Crows' imperfect science, Mark Stevens, 2 September 2006, Herald Sun
3. ^ Hall of Fame Inductees Including Career Records, SANFL, accessed 8 September 2006.
4. ^ X-Men Want AFL Pledge | Australian Football Association of North America
5. ^ Thompson, L., Engineering the World's Fastest Bicycle, Powerhouse Museum, accessed 8 September 2006
6. ^ Sheactive – Scientific Heart Rate Book (on ZoomInfo)
7. ^ The Adelaide Crows Neil for their coach Craig :: ABC Adelaide
8. ^ Craig still coach of the year? [Archive] – Injury Update Forum
9. ^ "Neil Craig quits as Adelaide Crows coach". The Sydney Morning Herald. 25 July 2011. http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-sport/neil-craig-quits-as-adelaide-crows-coach-20110725-1hwmh.html. Retrieved 25 July 2011. 

Sporting positions
Preceded by Gary Ayres	Adelaide Football Club coach 2004–2011	Succeeded by Mark Bickley (caretaker)

Persondata
Name	Craig, Neil
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	11 January 1956
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death