Neil Craig

Neil P. Craig (born January 11, 1956) is a former Australian rules footballer, fitness advisor and is currently the coach of the Adelaide Football Club in the Australian Football League.

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Playing career

Craig played a total of 319 games (and 220 goals) in the 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 '86) 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 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, 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, he took up the position of fitness adviser and assistant coach in the AFL with Adelaide Crows. He is credited with helping devise the fitness regime that led the Crows to back-to-back premierships in 1997 and 1998, where players are trained harder to reach peak fitness during finals matches. ^[8]

He took over the senior coaching position in 2004 as caretaker from the sacked Gary Ayres at the Adelaide Football Club and was fully appointed for the 2005 season, leading the Crows to the minor premiership in his first full season in charge. But after another failed season in 2006, the Crows collapsed in 2007.

Trivia

• TV and radio personality Sam Newman regularly calls him Craig David, due to the relatively low profile of Craig outside of Adelaide and the fact that he has "two first names", much like the popular singer.

References

1. ^ Full Points Footy
2. ^ Crows' imperfect science, Mark Stevens, September 2, 2006, Herald Sun
3. ^ Hall of Fame Inductees Including Career Records, SANFL, accessed 8 September, 2006.
4. ^ [1]
5. ^ Thompson, L., Engineering the World's Fastest Bicycle, Powerhouse Museum, accessed 8 September, 2006
6. ^ Sheactive - Scientific Heart Rate Book (on ZoomInfo)
7. ^ [2]
8. ^ [3]