Neil Passmore Craig (born 11 January 1956) is an Australian

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...

coach Coach may refer to: Guidance/instruction * Coach (sport), a director of Athletes' training and activities * Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process ** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers Transportation * Coac ...

and former player. He is best known as being coach of the

Adelaide Football Club The Adelaide Football Club, nicknamed the Crows, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Adelaide, South Australia that was founded in 1990. The Crows have fielded a men's team in the Australian Football League (AFL) since 199 ...

from 2004 to 2011. He also notably served as caretaker coach of the

Melbourne Football Club The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Demons or colloquially the Dees, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier comp ...

in 2013, He played for the

Norwood Football Club The Norwood Football Club, nicknamed the Redlegs, is an Australian rules football club competing in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL). Its home ground is Norwood Oval, Coopers Stadium (Norwood Oval), which is often referred ...

Sturt Football Club The Sturt Football Club, nicknamed The Double Blues, is a semi-professional Australian rules football club based in the suburb of Unley, South Australia, which plays in the South Australian National Football League. Founded in 1901 by the Stur ...

and the

North Adelaide Football Club The North Adelaide Football Club, nicknamed the Roosters, is an Australian rules football club affiliated with the South Australian National Football League (SANFL) and SANFL Women's League (SANFLW). The club plays its home games at Prospect ...

in the

South Australian National Football League The South Australian National Football League, or SANFL ( or ''S-A-N-F-L''), is an Australian rules football league based in the Australian state of South Australia. It is also the state's sports governing body, governing body for the sport. ...

(SANFL). He has worked as a fitness adviser, coach of the

, a caretaker coach of the

, head of performance at the

Essendon Football Club The Essendon Football Club, nicknamed the Bombers or colloquially the Dons, is a professional Australian rules football club that plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), the game's premier competition. The club was formed by the McCrac ...

, as well as director of coaching at the

Carlton Football Club The Carlton Football Club, nicknamed the Blues, is a professional Australian rules football club based at Princes Park (stadium), Princes Park in Carlton North, Victoria, Carlton North, an inner suburb of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. The c ...

. From 2017 to 2022 he was high performance manager for the

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

rugby union team, working with head coach Eddie Jones.

Playing career

Craig played a total of 319 games (and kicked 220 goals) in the

(SANFL) as well as 11 State of Origin matches for South Australia. He played 126 games for the

, 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. Craig played 134 games for Sturt (captaining the side in 1985 and 1986) between 1980 and 1986 and was also captain of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

in 1984. He moved to

North Adelaide North Adelaide is a predominantly residential precinct (Australia), precinct and suburb of the City of Adelaide in South Australia, situated north of the River Torrens and within the Adelaide Park Lands. Laid out in a grid plan in three section ...

, 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

Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football competition in Australia operated by the Australian Football League (AFL) as a second-tier, regional, semi-professional competition. It includes teams from clubs based in east ...

(VFL), but declined the offer as he preferred to stay in South Australia. 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 and coaching 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 The South Australian Football Hall of Fame enshrines those who have made a most significant contribution to the game of Australian Football. The Hall of Fame was established in 2002 when 114 outstanding individuals became inaugural inductees. S ...

Fitness advising

Craig hails from a fitness background and holds a

sports science Sports science is a discipline that studies how the healthy human body works during exercise, and how sports and physical activity promote health and performance from cellular to whole body perspectives. The study of sports science traditionally i ...

degree. He has worked with the Australian

cycling Cycling, also known as bicycling or biking, is the activity of riding a bicycle or other types of pedal-driven human-powered vehicles such as balance bikes, unicycles, tricycles, and quadricycles. Cycling is practised around the world fo ...

team at the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

and with the South Australian Institute of Sport as a senior sports scientist. He has worked under cycling legend Charlie Walsh at the Australian Cycling Federation (where he was sports science co-ordinator) and also recruited Walsh as part of the Crows' AFL coaching panel.

Adelaide

In 1997, Craig took up the position of fitness adviser with the

. He is credited with helping devise the fitness regime that led the Crows to back-to-back premierships in 1997 and 1998 in which players were trained harder mid-season in order to reach peak fitness during finals matches. Craig left the club in 1999 to help the Australian Olympic cycling team prepare for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games but returned in 2001 to be an assistant coach under Gary Ayres. In late 2001 he was the favourite for the

West Coast Eagles The West Coast Eagles are a professional Australian rules football club based in Perth, Western Australia. The club was founded in 1986 and first competed in 1987 as one of two expansion teams in the Australian Football League (AFL), then known ...

coaching job in 2002 but dropped out of the running. He took over the senior coaching position at the Crows in 2004 as caretaker when Ayres left the club after Round 13. He was then appointed full-time for the 2005 season and immediately led the Crows to their first

minor premiership A minor premiership is the title given to the team which finishes a sporting competition first in the league standings after the regular season but prior to commencement of the finals in several Australian sports leagues. Origins The etymolo ...

2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...

, and took the team to two successive preliminary finals in his first two years as senior coach in

and

2006 2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification. Events January * January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute. * January 12 – A stampede during t ...

, losing and being eliminated by West Coast Eagles twice. Under Craig, the Crows reached the finals for five consecutive years but achieved limited success, leaving him with a finals' coaching record of three wins and six losses. The club under Craig had a disappointing 2010 season when Adelaide finished eleventh with nine wins and thirteen losses, therefore missing out of the finals. After another disappointing 2011 season, when Adelaide under Craig sat fourteenth on the ladder with four wins and twelve losses, Craig resigned as senior coach of the Adelaide Crows on 25 July 2011 after a 103-point loss to St Kilda in Round 18. He left the club as the longest-serving coach in the Crows' history. Craig was then replaced by assistant coach

Mark Bickley Mark Alan Bickley (born 4 August 1969) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Adelaide Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Bickley was a player for the Crows from 1991 until 2003, captaining the team to bo ...

as caretaker senior coach for the rest of the 2011 season.

Melbourne

After his resignation as Adelaide Football Club senior coach, Craig was signed as the Director of Sports Performance at the

on 29 September 2011, beginning in the 2012 season. His primary role was mentoring and assisting the players of the club, in particular the younger players, and to mentor and assist the other assistant coaches, including an assistant coach. Despite the off-season acquisitions of several experienced players, such as Shannon Byrnes, Tom Gillies, Chris Dawes and David Rodan, the Demons underachieved in the first half of

2013 AFL season The 2013 AFL season was the 117th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season featured eig ...

, managing just 1 win in their first 11 games. As the result of this poor start to the 2013 season, after the Demons' mid-season bye on 17 June 2013, the Demons' senior coach,

Mark Neeld Mark Neeld (born 13 July 1971) is a former Australian rules footballer who played with Geelong and Richmond in the Australian Football League (AFL) during the 1990s. He was senior coach of the Melbourne Football Club from 2012 to 2013. As of ...

, was sacked. His sacking came within weeks of the departures of senior Demons' staff members Cameron Schwab and Don McLardy. Subsequently, Craig was appointed as the caretaker senior coach of the Demons for the remainder of the 2013 season. Craig coached the Demons for 11 games, managing just 1 win, for a winning percentage of just 9%. Craig left the club after the completion of the 2013 season with former

Sydney Swans The Sydney Swans are a professional Australian rules football club based in Sydney, New South Wales. The men's team competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), and the women's team in the AFL Women's (AFLW). The Swans also field a Austral ...

premiership senior coach Paul Roos taking over the senior coaching role at the end of the season.

Essendon

On 10 October 2013, Craig was appointed to the newly created role of head of coaching development and strategy at the

"Mark Thompson named Essendon coach as Bombers confirm James Hird won't return to top job in 2014"
''Herald Sun'', 10 October 2013. Retrieved 11 October 2013. and then on 15 April 2014, he was promoted to the position of General Manager, Performance. In this role Craig oversaw all team performance functions including coaching, development and high performance which meant that the coaching staff reported to him.

Carlton

On 30 September 2015, Craig was appointed to Brendon Bolton's new coaching panel at the

, taking on the role of Director of Coaching, Development and Performance. On 14 August 2017, it was announced that he would retire from his career in the football industry at the end of the 2017 season.

England rugby union team

From October 2017, Craig worked as "a consultant for highest performance to look how we operate and see how we can improve" with the

England national rugby union team The England national rugby union team represents the Rugby Football Union (RFU) in international rugby union. They compete in the annual Six Nations Championship with France national rugby union team, France, Ireland national rugby union team, ...

. Areas of focus included leadership, communication and teamwork. Part of his role was also to be a 'critical friend' to head coach Eddie Jones whom he had worked with previously. The team reached the final of the 2019 World Cup.

Gold Coast Suns

In December 2019, Craig joined the

Gold Coast Suns The Gold Coast Suns, officially the Gold Coast Football Club, are a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club is based on Queensland's Gold Coast, Queensland, Gold Coast in the ...

in a part-time consultancy role for the coaching group. This involved a game day bench role in the 2021 season.

Australia rugby union team

Craig followed Eddie Jones from the English rugby union team to the

Wallabies A wallaby () is a small or middle-sized macropod native to Australia and New Guinea, with introduced populations in New Zealand, Hawaii, the United Kingdom and other countries. They belong to the same taxonomic family as kangaroos and som ...

, holding a similar support role in 2023.

Head coaching record

Notes

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Craig, Neil Australian rules footballers from South Australia Adelaide Football Club coaches Sturt Football Club players North Adelaide Football Club players Norwood Football Club players Norwood Football Club coaches Living people Australian physiologists Australian sports scientists 1956 births South Australian Sports Institute alumni Melbourne Football Club coaches South Australian Football Hall of Fame inductees South Australian State of Origin players South Australian Sports Institute coaches