Book by Eddie Betts, excerpt from Adelaide Crows training camp, chat with Carlton, Don Pyke

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Melbourne champion Garry Lyon says it’s no surprise an infamous pre-season camp ‘destroyed’ Adelaide after reading Eddie Betts’ memoir of his experience.

A clip from Betts’ upcoming autobiography, “The Boy from Boomerang Crescent,” was released Monday night via age in which the three-time All-Australian called the side “weird” and “completely disrespectful”.

Several players, including Betts, and officials left the club in the years following the pre-season leadership camp, which foxfooty.com.au revealed the details of in March this year.

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In the most damning first-hand account of the 2018 camp to date, Betts claimed that private details shared during a counseling session during camp were misused, while sensitive Indigenous cultural rituals were been diverted.

“There was all kinds of weird bullshit that was disrespectful to many cultures, but particularly and extremely disrespectful to my culture,” he wrote.

Betts also wrote that he was told he would “come back a better husband and father, a better teammate” after camp – terms veteran players Taylor Walker and Rory Sloane used when defending the event from four days.

speaking on SEN breakfast On Wednesday morning, Lyon said he was stunned by Betts’ account, but added that it provided important context for the ensuing turmoil at the Crows.

Rory Sloane and Eddie Betts during an Adelaide Crows game in 2019. Photo: Scott BarbourSource: Getty Images

“When you read those words from Eddie, there’s no debating what impact it had on him. He’s talking about Indigenous actors, cultural differences or sensitivities that weren’t respected. C ‘is Eddie…and that’s unequivocal, right? You can’t argue with all that,” Lyon said. SEN breakfast.

“And then you read this from Taylor Walker: ‘The camp we attended as a football club, personally I found one of the most beneficial and rewarding camps I’ve ever attended as a football club. than individual. I encourage all my friends and family members to do the same. Our football club, like most other clubs in the AFL, tries to take advantage of (the other teams). Rory Sloane: ‘I can talk about what I got out of it personally. I came back 100% from this camp feeling like a better husband, a better son and a much better teammate than when I was before. For me, the experience was amazing.

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“Now clearly everyone’s own experiences have been taken into this and from an Indigenous perspective a lot of Eddie was saying cultural sensitivities weren’t being respected – and that’s very, very real.

“In the end, it was untenable. We talk about the atmosphere and the environment…separate who you agree with and who you disagree with, the fact is that it splits the club in two. When you have the Sloanes and the Walkers, who have their memory, and then you have Eddie and others, I guess… no wonder it destroyed that joint.

“You have a section of the football club – and I’m not just putting that at the feet of Walker and Sloane, there may be others in the same boat – saying ‘I got so much out of it, c ‘was good ‘. And then on the other side, just at the other end of the scale, you have ‘no, it tore me apart, it tore my relationship apart’. No wonder then from a football club perspective and trying to stay together and on the same page, it ended up where it was.

Eddie Betts was a star for the Crows. Photo: James ElsbySource: Getty Images

Essendon legend Tim Watson said he was shocked by allegations of cultural insensitivity during camp.

“Given what they did at that camp, you would think that the planning that went on there – in that planning from a football club perspective – they would have said to these guys: “OK, what are you planning to do?” And you would expect them to outline all the different areas they were going to go into, how they were going to go about it, what their goals were — all those sorts of things,” Watson said. SEN breakfast.

“So you would think somewhere in there there would be someone representing the Adelaide Crows and there would be someone there as part of the Adelaide Crows group who understood the cultural sensitivities of some of these indigenous players s ‘they had to present the camp the way it was obviously presented. At that point, you’d think someone would say “no, you’re now going into territory we shouldn’t be venturing into”.

Lyon said Betts’ belief that his private information he shared was later misused during camp was “betrayal”.

“I’m just reading the excerpt, so I haven’t read the whole book. But if you’re told, whether you’re black or white or whatever, “these people at camp want to talk to you and they’re saying get away from everyone in private and we want you to have a conversation where you’re open and vulnerable. “…And I’m going ‘OK. In terms of building myself as a better player and a leader, I’ll share and give you those really sensitive things that, to me, are important.” Then having that thrown back in my face is not cultural for me,” Lyon said.

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“How it affects me and someone else may be different depending on the culture, but it’s a betrayal to me.”

After scoring 310 goals in six seasons with Adelaide, Betts was sent back to Carlton at the end of 2019 to end his career.

Kane Cornes, a four-time better and fairer Power winner, dubbed Betts one of the two most popular players to ever represent Adelaide alongside Tony Modra. So for Cornes, “reading how he was treated by his own football club – of which he is an icon – was the saddest part for me”.

Cornes said he would be fascinated by how the Crows, as well as South Australian media personalities, would react to Betts’ book.

“The question is, all the people who defended the camp and said nothing continued…what do they do now?” he asked about SEN SA breakfast.

“How are they going to handle this? Because we now have a ‘shot-by-shot record’, which is pretty heartbreaking that your second or most popular player in club history has been treated like an animal, really, in this camp.”

Cornes added: “There are a lot of eggs in the faces of the Crows supporters, the foot club and a few players who were there.”

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