Adelaide Crows Chairman Rob Chapman says the decision to sack coach Brenton Sanderson was “tough as all hell”, but needed to be made to prevent another mediocre season.

However, this morning a leading contender for the job touted by the Crows – Adelaide premiership player Simon Goodwin – made himself unavailable for the job, agreeing to join Melbourne.

Chapman told a press conference this morning he spent four to five hours yesterday discussing the decision with Sanderson.

“I put forward my point of view. Naturally, Brenton doesn’t agree with that point of view and I respect that,” Chapman said.

“At the end of the day, this is the coach; the head of our football department, whose prime responsibility and accountability is to have great relationships uncompromising culture, and you have to win.”

“Mediocrity – and that’s what we’ve been in the last two seasons, for whatever reason – is unacceptable.

“We don’t part ways with senior people, coaches lightly.

“Two seasons like we’ve just had are unacceptable.

“This is a much better scenario to be in today, as opposed to six games into next year and we burn another year.

“That would be unacceptable and then there would be bigger and harder questions made of a lot more people.”

Chapman praised Sanderson as a “good coach” but said that data from the board’s review of this season had “eventually made the decision itself for us”.

“Where we finished on the ladder this year doesn’t reflect the talent, therefore you need to ask the question: why?

“Brenton is a good coach – strategically, tactically, game-day very very sound but there’s a lot of things that go into making a good coach and timing is everything.”

“If another club approached me for info back on Brenton, I’d be telling them some pretty good things.”

Chapman said a rigorous process of analysis and consultation was concluded before the decision to sack Sanderson was made.

“The players were just part of a whole range of stakeholders that we engaged in a rigorous process that  you would only expect from a football club,” Chapman said.

“The senior players were all consulted; so was the medical team; so was the fitness team. So were staff, so were external stakeholders…”

Chapman said the board, rather than senior players or new CEO Andrew Fagan, was behind the final decision.

He said Sanderson’s contract would be paid out in full and that the process to find a new coach would begin today.

“That gene pool isn’t very deep. There are only a select number that can,” he said.

That gene pool just got shallower, with Goodwin – Essendon’s senior assistant coach – agreeing to join Melbourne.

Before that announcement, Chapman said Goodwin was a contender.

“Simon is a former captain and club legend. He will be but one of what will be a complete and exhaustive list of all coaches,” he said.

Earlier, Crows champion and board member Mark Ricciuto said on his Triple M breakfast show this morning Sanderson’s was designed to prevent the team’s predicament going from “bad to worse”.

Ricciuto revealed that the Crows board feared that Sanderson would have to be sacked mid-year if they didn’t make the decision to part company with the coach now.

The former Crows skipper has been accused by fellow radio broadcaster and former club captain Chris McDermott of being behind the Sanderson decision.

However, Ricciuto says he was just one member of a sub-committee tasked with reviewing the coach’s position, including Chapman, board member Andrew Payze and football director David Noble.

“I would say that if we didn’t make this decision things could go from bad to worse, like they have at other times in the Adelaide Football Club history where we’ve had coaches that have moved on halfway through a season,” Ricciuto said.

“I’ve seen it all happen before – I know how easily it can unravel.”

Ricciuto, who was appointed to the board this year, made it clear that he wasn’t happy with Sanderson’s performance.

When asked whether Sanderson was up to the task he said: “Well you don’t get sacked if you’re otherwise do you?

“He’s a good coach in some ways, I feel. He’s a good bloke. To be a good coach you have to be good at a lot of things. The role of an AFL coach has changed so much over the last 20 years. It’s now about managing a huge amount of people – not just 40 players, not just about the two hours on game day. It’s about so many things – media, press, medical, high performance, other coaches…

“You have to have relationships with so many people. It’s not just about win-loss.”

It has been widely reported that Sanderson lost the support of a group of leading players including Patrick Dangerfield, Rory Sloane and Taylor Walker.

Ricciuto hinted that this was true.

“Basically we spoke to all the key people that you need to speak to, that the coach has got to have relationships (with) if it’s going to be a successful football club.

“Players were one of those groups and obviously formed part of the reason why he’s not there from next year onwards.”

When asked about the board’s responsibility for some of the problems faced by the club in recent years, including the mishandling of gun forward Kurt Tippett and the resulting draft sanctions from the AFL, Ricciuto suggested that management should share responsibility.

He said the two-year extension of Sanderson’s contract at the end of last year was a board decision “based on information given to them by management”.

Chief executive Stephen Trigg, who was also sanctioned by the AFL over the Tippett saga, has recently left the club to join Carlton. Ricciuto said his replacement, Andrew Fagan, who was appointed this week, was not involved in the Sanderson sacking, but had been kept informed.

Meanwhile, the sacking and how it was handled yesterday has unearthed some tensions between parts of the Adelaide media.

FIVEaa’s sports show hosts Chris McDermott and Stephen Rowe spent most of their drive show yesterday talking about unsubstantiated rumours involving the Crows.

However, they said they were trying to confirm its truth before putting any details to air.

As rumours of Sanderson’s sacking started to whirl more widely, Rowe insisted that FIVEaa would report the story first because the station was a corporate partner of the Crows.

However, other media reported that Sanderson was sacked before FIVEaa eventually received a media statement from the Crows and read that out on air.

FIVEaa breakfast presenter David Penberthy was scathing, describing the sacking as a “dog act” and accusing the Crows of incompetent handling of the announcement.

On his rival breakfast show this morning, Ricciuto said Penberthy didn’t have all the facts.

“I don’t want to get into a slanging match because I know Penbo,” he said. “I don’t know if he knows all the information so it’s a pretty big call to maake.

“He’s obviously mates with Sando and his wife.

“You need to know the full situation before you make comments like that. He might regret saying that.”

Sanderson is scheduled to hold a press conference this afternoon.

– with AAP