Jenkins: Pyke lacked courage at Crows camp

Josh Jenkins has revealed some further information about the infamous Adelaide Crows camp.

After reading Taylor Walker’s book - ‘Tex, A Taylor Made Story’ - Jenkins felt compelled to discuss the events of the camp further.

A part of Walker’s book does discuss a so-called ‘rite of passage’, led by Collective Mind. He went on to describe the distressing events when players were tied to a rope and had to cut themselves free.

After all these years, Jenkins still wishes the Crows’ senior coach at the time, Don Pyke, had the courage to stop the condemned camp in its tracks.

“I don't think I've really ever spoken about this part in detail either, but Tex has, so I was there and I guess I'm in the Chadd Sayers seat,” Jenkins said on SEN Summer Run.

“I can give my version of events as well.

“To fully understand what was expected of you when it was your turn on being tied to the rope - which you needed to go and grab a knife and free yourself from the rope. That was their initiation, their rite of passage.

“To fully understand the intensity and how hard you had to try and what was going to be involved you sort of needed to see an example. They thought it was a good idea to use someone in real life who was there for his own reasons, separate to us.

“This guy was talking about all sorts of things, sex addiction and the way he was treating women, all these different things. It was really confronting, it was like, ‘Whoa, what's going on here?’.

“Tex wrote about this. Again, I’m only saying it because he wrote about it in his book.

“Tex wrote about some players or a player that got up and threatened to leave. That was me.

“I stood up in that moment - and I've said this before - I stood up in that moment after we'd watched this guy talk about his issues and what his troubles were in life. And I actually pulled Don Pyke aside and I looked him in the eye and said, ‘We lost a game of football, this guy is all sorts of things. We need to be somewhere else, we need to not be here’.

“And Don Pyke - who knew as much about what was going to happen as I did and the rest of us, which is nothing - in my opinion his eyes were wavering. He was like, ‘I don't know about this either’, but he didn't have the courage to take us away from the situation and stop it in its tracks.

“He should have and I'll bet you if you asked him he wishes he had have had the courage in the moment to have stopped it right there and then, because it would have stopped a lot of fallout afterwards.

“I will always be proud of the fact I stood up in that moment and said, ‘We need to not be here, we shouldn't be here, and we don't deserve to be here’, and I just wish he had the same level of courage to be able to say, ‘We need to be taken away because this is gone too far. Now I didn't know anything about it as coach, I put my trust in some people that I shouldn't have, but right here right now ok, done’.

“And he didn't do it and I wish he had have, and I bet you he wishes he had have too.”