Have the Crows swung the narrative too far after small forward's troubled 2024 campaign?

Kane Cornes believes the Crows may have jumped the gun with small forward Josh Rachele, after coach Matthew Nicks dubbed his pre-season the best he’d seen in his time in football.

Rachele and the Crows were on rocky ground at the end of the 2024 season, with the former first-round pick dropped for Round 24 and called out by teammates for his on-field behaviour.

Speaking with Sam Edmund on SEN Breakfast, Cornes weighed in with his thoughts.

Edmund: “Is the Crows' pre-season love for Josh Rachele the predictable sequel? The kiss and make-up after the young forward was last year dropped for the last game of the season, for, as the Crows put it, repeatedly failing to adhere to the club's team first.”

Cornes: “This is just swinging the narrative too far. There needed to be somewhere in the middle. And, and this, this is a player who still needs some tough love.”

“So this isn’t the way I would have handled it. Clearly, they all turned on him right towards the end of last year. Even his teammates were coming out and speaking against the way that he was carrying himself, which I thought was fair enough.

“I still think there's a time and a place to pull the heads in of some players who have let themselves go and they act in a way their performance doesn’t warrant and that’s what happened with Rachele.

“So, I think the way that I would have handled it, ‘look, been really impressed with the way Josh has had his off-season, the way he's attacking his pre-season, let's hope that can continue into the season, and we get to see the best of Josh and he lets his actions do the talking’.

“Not this. A game hasn’t even been played. It’s just extreme. The best off-season he has seen from any player? Come on. It’s just predictable.”