Adelaide Crows lose defender Phil Davis to Greater Western Sydney Giants

TAYLOR Walker can now stay at Adelaide without stretching the Crows' salary cap as fellow key forward Kurt Tippett did two years ago.

TAYLOR Walker can now stay at Adelaide without stretching the Crows' salary cap as fellow key forward Kurt Tippett did two years ago.

This cash relief will also ensure the Crows are not outbid by either Collingwood or Essendon for 2009 club champion Bernie Vince.

And Adelaide is grateful it made first-round draftee Daniel Talia an untouchable last year when he was Carlton's asking price for Andrew Walker. The fall-out of young Crows defender Phil Davis yesterday becoming the first defector to new AFL franchise Greater Western Sydney has more than one silver lining at West Lakes.

"We've taken the first bullet," Adelaide chief executive Steven Trigg said last night. "It means, unlike other clubs, we do not have to live to the threat of an air-raid siren for the next 15 months.

"We have taken all our hits. We can now get on with developing our list with a new coach and no distractions."

The Giants have until the end of next season to take one uncontracted player from the established AFL clubs. Gold Coast last year claimed season centre half-back Nathan Bock from Adelaide.

Walker still is holding off contract talks with the Crows until the end of the season with his manager believing this is the best time to measure his value. There will be no inflationary trigger with the threat of walking to the Giants. Vince is in talks with the Crows.

Talia will replace Davis, who was to have covered Bock's loss to the Suns.

"We're now moving as hard and as fast as we can to keep Taylor and Bernie," Trigg said. "And Daniel Talia should consider Davis' departure as his opportunity."

While Broken Hill-born Walker was presented as the Giants' target at West Lakes, GWS concentrated solely on the Canberra-raised Davis.

Davis yesterday would not detail the terms of the deal he could not refuse from GWS.

While team-mate Matthew Jaensch Tweeted Davis had "800,000 reasons" to leave the Crows, it is understood the five-year deal averages at $750,000 a season. It is further sweetened by the promise of the captaincy and a gilt-edged introduction for his post-football career ambitions in law.

Adelaide's counter-offer - like the $600,000 deal that kept Tippett from the Suns - would have put the Crows at risk of losing two players.

"I'm not going to lie, money was a factor," Davis said yesterday.

"Football is the main thing. It is an exciting challenge to be with a club from its start. I have family all through NSW, I grew up there. Creating a group that will hopefully win premierships - all that makes this an opportunity I would like to grasp."

Adelaide is uncertain of the compensation draft pick it will get for Davis. There is regret at West Lakes the Crows did not lobby for inexperienced players to be quarantined from GWS's recruiting raids.

"In hindsight, we don't like three-year players, who you put time and effort into and draft with pick No. 10 in the (2008) draft leaving our club welcome to the new world of AFL footy," football operations chief Phil Harper said.

"Our club is bloody disappointed Phil has made this decision. We understand it, but we don't like it.

"When you lose a player who is 20 years old and whom we see as a future captain of our club and as a rising star, it's certainly a massive loss on the back of losing another centre half-back last year under similar circumstances."