Round #21 - Quieting the crowd
Jordan Dawson
Reluctantly let go by Sydney, his development continued and accelerated at the Crows, which obviously went beyond what we all got to see on the football field, which was exceptional. In 2023, he was appointed captain of Adelaide in just his second season, and also made the All-Australian team.
When recruiting Jordan Dawson, Adelaide acquired more than an outstanding player; they also brought in an exceptional leader into their group.
“We need to quiet the crowd.”
You will hear these words in the changerooms of teams playing in hostile territory.
It is more than an ‘us against them’ mindset, although that also plays its role.
The shifts of momentum have never been more pronounced than in modern sport. We saw St Kilda come from 46 points down at three-quarter-time to beat Melbourne, a record comeback, last week's 'Moment of the Match'. And whilst Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera was the difference maker with his spectacular and sublime play, you could hear the crowd noise build as the Saints kicked the first few goals to be in reach, but when they kicked a couple more, you could feel the noise.
Immediately after the game, social feeds filled with scenes of pure elation and celebration, literal screams of joy from Saints supporters unable to control their emotions in that moment, filming themselves and their kids, and whoever was in their proximity, hugging, laughing, crying, the only qualification being an item of red, black and white, anything that said, “You’re one of us”.
A footy crowd can sense the most subtle of momentum shifts. It comes from inside them. What you feel, as much as what you see. Your club asks so much of you, often for little return. It demands and receives your love, even when performance, often over many years and sometimes decades, makes them almost unlovable. Still, you turn up or turn it on. Hope is such a pervasive emotion, and it is the basis of this often tormented relationship. Just a couple of quick goals is all it takes to energise a stadium or get you off the couch.
“We’re back in this”, says the little voice inside, and the barracking is a little louder and longer.
The players feel it and do try to catch the wave.
And for the other team, there is only one real way to stop the wave taking them with it: on the scoreboard.
Only then will they have quieted the crowd.
—
Like so many in the crowd, I fell in love with the game before I fell in love with anything else.
So many layers. The folklore. Where it had come from, romantic stories of victories and losses, the heroes, some unlikely, others predestined. The past is always present. The aesthetic and mindset. The best of breed athleticism and potential for acts of supreme sporting prowess, as Nasiah so wonderfully demonstrated.
But it was also often heartbreaking, with an inherent capacity for catastrophe. The immediacy and judgement, and almost overwhelmingly, its anxiety. The promise and fear of what comes next, giving all the impression that you can control what you simply cannot, as the Demons experienced.
I then chose to work in it, or perhaps it wasn’t a choice.
To ride these emotions, not just as a lover of the game, but as someone whose vocational livelihood not only depended on it, but who allowed myself to be defined by it.
But being in such close proximity to the sport, I understood that, for all its intoxicating qualities, its opportunities, excitement, and colour, it was also ambiguous, complex, and sometimes, just lousy.
The many waves, game by game, season by season, job by job.
Knowing that, for all the work that is done, there is only one real way to stop the wave taking us/you with it: on the scoreboard.
Only then will we have quieted the crowd.
—
“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf”, Jon Kabat-Zinn
Hawthorn had quieted the crowd.
Playing the Adelaide Crows at Adelaide Oval.
It is a full house, a crowd of over 50,000 passionate Adelaide supporters and just a sprinkling of Hawthorn colours amongst what the Crows call their ‘19th man’. Play Adelaide, they proudly proclaim, and you are playing against an extra player - an imposing wall-of-sound.
The Crows are in terrific form, belting Port Adelaide in the Showdown the week before. The only disappointment for Crows supporters was that they didn’t win by a 100, missing the magical margin by just two points.
I love the idea of ‘build what you can, buy what you can’t’, and wrote about this in an earlier 'Moment of the Match', referencing the work of Geelong over the past twenty years.
From what we have seen in 2025, they have ‘built and bought’ the right way, and have been doing so over the last half-dozen years under Senior Coach Matthew Nicks. They are now reaping the rewards.
The Crows haven’t made the finals since 2017, their last finals match a devastating Grand Final loss to Richmond, having come into the game in great form and as warm favourites. Since then, it has been tough going in a very unforgiving environment. The 19th man has shown signs of turning in on itself during some tough times, frustrated by their perceived lack of progress. Under Matthew Nicks’ coaching, they have never finished higher than 10th, and last year dropped to 15th on the AFL ladder, but still they held their line. This takes leadership courage and humility.
One of their ‘buys’, traded from the Sydney Swans after the 2021 season, was Jordan Dawson, who my drawing celebrates. A later draft pick a decade ago, who took a while to establish himself at the Swans, but when he did, the football world certainly took notice.
Reluctantly let go by Sydney, his development continued and accelerated at the Crows, which went beyond what we all got to see on the football field, which was exceptional.
In 2023, he was appointed captain of Adelaide in just his second season, and also made the All-Australian team.
When recruiting Jordan Dawson, Adelaide acquired more than an outstanding player; they also brought in an exceptional leader into their group.
It is possible to introduce leadership in this way.
When Hawthorn’s flurry of goals to start their Friday night game ‘quieted the crowd’, it was Dawson who kicked a couple of inspirational goals in the second quarter to bring the crowd back to life.
And from that point onwards, the Hawks had the 19th man to contend with.
—
“Character is more than just having principles. It’s a learned capacity to live by your principles”, Adam Grant.
Leaders must have a clear set of principles by which they seek to lead, a form of leadership intention.
But people do not experience our intentions; they experience our behaviours.
The behaviour of Senior Coach Matthew Nicks was discussed during the match and its aftermath, a significant win for his team.
They referenced the coach at quarter time, with Adelaide having just kicked its first goal after conceding the first five goals to the Hawks. They showed Matthew Nicks addressing his team. He was calm, and his team was fully engaged with him.
I am sure he experienced many of the emotions watching the game as most in the crowd did, but it was clear that he was able to access the best part of himself in that moment, his “learned capacity to live by his principle’s”, as Adam Grant, an outstanding leadership thinker explains in his book ‘Hidden Potential’.
The common belief, so it seems, given prevailing narratives about elite team sport, is that the better leaders can ‘extract’ performance from a group, and there is a small truth in this. We all need a hurry up from time to time. But this practice must be used sparingly to retain its impact and value, for it will have diminishing returns.
In my experience, great leaders can ‘unlock’ performance from both the individual and the team, often by recognising capability and opportunity they are yet to see in themselves, and then by providing a pathway to achieve it.
My firm belief is that ‘effort’ can be coached, but not in the shouting, red-faced, vein-popping, finger-pointing ‘try harder’ cliche of coaching, so often the expectation. As with all things leadership, the process is complex and nuanced, and will ultimately be the difference maker.
I am sure that Matthew Nicks communicated in that moment what needed to be said. The fact that he was able to access what seemed to be the best part of himself says a great deal about him as a leader, and his team responded as he would have hoped.
I am sure it wasn’t only an ‘unlock’ message; it is also likely that there were some elements of ‘extract’ in it as well. If Nicks needed to be more demonstrative, he would have been. The critical behaviour he modelled for his team was his capacity to remain in control of his emotions during this crucial time in a high-stakes game.
—
Begin Again.
'Learning to surf' from a leadership perspective means accessing the best part of yourself at the crucial moments, those times when your emotional state could well betray you.
I coach a simple exercise that served me well as a CEO called ‘Begin Again’.
It is a practice of bringing yourself back to the present when your thinking becomes distracted, as it inevitably will. But it’s also a very practical and often necessary means of hitting the reset button. Your day might not have started well, or a meeting has gone off the rails, or an important conversation lost its way, or the opposition may have kicked the first five goals of the game.
Blame, complaint, criticism, and deflection may offer comfort, and will also find friends easily, but offer nothing for those who need much more from you.
They are the ‘enemies of trust’.
‘Begin Again’ is a circuit breaker. We cannot change what has happened, but we can take responsibility for what we do about it, giving ourselves the best chance to make the most of the rest of our day, or the time we share together, the next ten minutes, or the next quarter.
It starts with presence, “being where your feet are”, pausing to ask yourself, preferably using pen and paper to help bring you to the present:
“What does this moment expect of me?”, then writing down the following:
What would a calm leader do now? - I have never made a good choice when I am angry
What would a brave leader do now? - Choosing courage over comfort
What would a humble leader do now? - As leader, it is all on you, but not about you.
What would a compassionate leader do now? - Drawing on ideas of fairness, even in these high-stakes environments. Start with yourself. Often, self-compassion is what is needed.
Then, when I have finished this reflection, remind yourself:
“There has never been a better opportunity for me to lead.”
Only then will you have quieted the crowd.
Play on!
My work builds on the belief that leadership is the defining characteristic of every great organisation or team.
You cannot outperform your leadership.
Our offering is designed for leaders who know that personal leadership effectiveness drives team and organisational performance and that there must be a better, more efficient and effective way to learn leadership.
Feel free to connect, or make contact
