Rory Sloane opens up about life after footy
Last year, Rory finished up with the Crows but he tells SA Weekend that it was one of the toughest decisions of his life.
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Rory Sloane fired off a text to good friend Taylor ‘Tex’ Walker.
For over 15 years the two would embark on pre-seasons at West Lakes together.
But in November last year as Walker and the rest of the Adelaide Crows arrived back on deck to prepare for the 2025 campaign, it was truly dawning on Sloane that a new chapter of his life was beginning.
“Yeah absolutely, day one (of pre-season) I messaged Tex and I just said, ‘Mate, I am so jealous, enjoy all this, enjoy another year,’” he says. “I felt really jealous of the boys going back, but it’s just what it is, isn’t it?
“I kind of had two choices. I could feel sad and sorry that it was over or I could move on, enjoy the career I have had and look forward to the next phase of life which I certainly am.”
It is the attitude that has made Sloane a Crows legend and a much-loved and widely respected player in the AFL.
It helped him overcome adversity both on and off the field, willing his body and mind to find a way. And Sloane had to draw on every bit of this when he had to say goodbye to the game he loves in circumstances he never could have predicted as he throws himself into what is next.
The 35-year-old never thought it would end like this.
“I thought I would literally finish up playing footy until I was like 40, washed up in the twos and the club kicking me out and being like, ‘Mate, you are no longer needed here,’” he says.
“That was probably my ideal way of finishing up and I was probably looking for someone to make the call for me but with something like this it is up to you and what you value in life.”
Ever since he had to wait until pick 44 on draft night in 2008, overlooked by a host of other clubs, Sloane gave everything he could on the field for the Crows.
This lion-hearted approach earned him an All-Australian in 2016, two Malcolm Blight Medals for the Crows’ best and fairest, and the Robert Rose Award for the most courageous player in the AFL in 2017.
He was co-captain of the Crows with Walker in 2019 before leading the club outright from 2020-2022.
Through all of this he would put his body on the line again and again for the team, and paid the price for it.
He fractured his jaw in 2011, his cheekbone in 2015, there was a torn retina in 2013 and then a detached one in 2021, appendicitis sidelined him for the 2017 qualifying final, a Lisfranc foot injury in 2018, a fractured thumb in 2020, a high-grade tendon injury to his finger that he played on with in 2021 and then his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury in 2022.
The ACL injury came when Sloane was 32 and the questions went from “Will he return?” to “Will he be in the Crows’ best team?” and then “Just how many games will he play?”
Yet despite his meniscus being completely taken out, Sloane returned and played 22 games in 2023.
“Yeah they pretty much took the whole thing (his meniscus) out, so to be able to come back and play with it is something I am pretty proud of,” he says. “I went down a bit of a different path with it and realised that the mind is a lot more controlled than what we give it credit for and certainly got myself in a strong position a couple of years back.
“I’ve had a couple of people, Paula Lyle, a lady who is our yoga instructor and she has helped me explore that area of the mind.
“It probably started with conversations with her and then it became about some of my own research too in a couple of different fields about what people had done with different injuries, sicknesses or illnesses and what they had done to overcome those and I just tried to reframe it and put it in a situation that was relevant to me.
“It was all about how can I come back feeling super strong, happy and healthy and having those three things off the ACL.
“I also wanted to leave no stone unturned, I wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself if I didn’t. I thought about the worst case scenario if I came back off my ACL and did it again, had I done everything I possibly could have, to say, ‘Yep I tried and explored everything to make it work.’”
So when Sloane was rushed in for emergency surgery on a detached retina – his second and sixth eye injury of his career – in January 2024 the initial plan was to do what he had always done, come back from it.
“Yeah it was probably one of those ones where I thought of it,” Sloane laughs. “And because I have always had that attitude through every injury I have always believed it is a choice, you choose the right path and you are able to overcome anything.
“The eye was a little bit different … you listen to the medical professionals that know this area well and it is a little bit out of my control the way I can rehab it and heal it and the fact the second one literally came out of nowhere.”
Sloane knew something was wrong when he noticed that he had lost some of his peripheral vision in training.
“Some may say I didn’t see it coming, to pardon the pun,” he says.
After the surgery, Sloane returned to training and explored wearing protective goggles in a last-ditch attempt to play. In April, he thought he could “pull one more out of the hat” and play a SANFL game. But it was just a risk that the warrior could not take and, after coming to the realisation, he pulled the pin on his 255-game career later that month.
“With eyesight, it is just too risky,” he says. “I love travelling and exploring the world, I love just seeing and observing things … and when you are lucky to keep 80 per cent, 50 per cent or even the whole eyesight where as some people who have detached retinas aren’t so lucky.
“It was (hard to accept) but you just have to drop the ego and the ego does make you think, ‘Oh you will be right and you can play if you wear goggles and that and your body will be fine’, because that has been the attitude I have always had.
“But once I was able to drop that and step back and go: one, it will provide opportunities for other kids such as Jake Soligo, a whole range of guys to step up in that midfield. Two, I have had an incredibly long career, one I have enjoyed to that point and, three, I want to see some stuff.
“So once I was able to do that it was a pretty easy choice to go: Yep it is time to move on.
“But it was tricky because I was probably looking for someone to do that, to say ‘No, you should not be doing this.’
“I think everyone is very careful especially when it comes to the end of your career when you are doing something that you love.
“I was probably looking for someone to make the call for me but with something like this it is up to you and what you value in life.
“I probably went for a couple of surfs and took the time to actually go: ‘Yep is this the right decision?’ but really I had to come to the decision myself.”
While he officially retired at the end of April, 2024, Sloane continued to train with the Crows for the rest of the year.
The Crows’ injury list was a long one and Sloane felt that if he could help a Riley Thilthorpe, a Nick Murray or Josh Worrell return a week or two earlier that was how he could pay the club back. It also helped him prepare for life after footy.
“I could have coached, I could have done a whole range of things but I thought that was the most impactful I could be,” he says.
“That was really a soft landing for me to retire. I was like, I could stay involved here. Most people finish up at the end of the season and they don’t have a touch point.
“I got to be a part of the whole year and enjoy that part of it, which was a great way for me to go. Yeah, once the season finished I could move on and look for what’s next.”
But before what was next, Sloane went overseas with wife Belinda, kids Sonny, 5, Bodhi, 4,and Summer, 2, and chased some waves. Surfing has always helped Sloane when things have got rough.
Facing the first time in 15 years that he would not be a footy player, it again came to his aid.
“We did a Fiji trip, a Maldives trip, Singapore. I just knew that I wouldn’t have that time away again with the kids and have a little rest period and I just wanted to make the most of it,” he says.
“Obviously I didn’t retire the way I wanted to, I would have loved to keep playing but surfing has always helped balance me back out. So those couple of trips helped provide me with that perspective and when I came back I was ready to launch back from there.
“Travelling is always something my wife and I have loved, I have worked with GoPro for a couple of years, those sorts of trips we will always make time to do and will always make time to do them with the kids as well because they are some of the best memories that you can make and they always provide me with a bit of balance.
“When things get tough, surfing has always provided me with that balance and the trip last year was incredible, even Belinda and I shared some waves together, which was a first.
“So plenty of great moments.”
The kids might be missing the crèche at Adelaide Oval for Crows’ home games – “they keep going: ‘When are we going back to the crèche?’” Sloane says, but he has quickly jumped into life post-footy. He has joined former Crows’ chairman Rob Chapman’s Chapman Capital Partners as a director – something that was 10 years in the making.
“Throughout the years, Chappy and I would talk … I just wanted to learn that whole field, that business world,” Sloane says.
“So stepping into that world has been great because it has been something completely different to football and it challenges me in a different way.”
And then there’s the media.
Melbourne approached him to join its coaching panel at the end of the season, but Sloane instead decided to become the latest ex-player to enter the media space.
With the footy TV wars hotting up, he was Channel 9’s big-name signing along with former Essendon coach James Hird.
Featuring on the hard-hitting analysis show Footy Classified and then the lighter Sunday Footy Show, Sloane is also part of 3AW’s AFL radio coverage for 2025.
He replaces Kane Cornes on the TV shows, and while he is enjoying not having to worry about creating any headlines for the Crows, don’t expect him to employ the shock and big call tactics of his former Port Adelaide rival.
“I said this to someone the other day. I am really enjoying being able to have an opinion,” he says. “Because when you are in the media whilst connected to the footy club you never wanted to create a story or headline or any more work for the media crew than they already had on so I was very conscious of that and it has been great to have an opinion.
“Hopefully I can share a different insight to what I think has previously been out there in the media and a bit more of a balanced view that has come from some life experience and footy experience. There are so many shows out there so I understand everyone is looking for content and a headline maybe.”
Already he has come out and said he was “appalled” at the criticism of West Coast’s former No.1 pick Harley Reid in just his second year in the league.
It’s an approach Sloane hopes can not only teach fans. “We used to say this at the footy club, things are either a trend or an event and we used to wait for the trends before we made a call on something,” he says.
“If a thing was an event or a one week out of the blue thing then you can’t change something based on one week.
“You learn a lot through football and life and that is something I am hoping to share and show fans and even players and coaches that there is a different way to do things.”
Yet there is the question, like there is of every ex-player who comes into the media, how will Sloane fare if he has to criticise his former club or ex-teammates?
“It is probably no different to how we would review games when I was at the club, you do it in a respectful way and you do it in a way that you learn,” he says.
“When that time comes it would be no different to your role as a leader in the footy club and how you review your own games and performances.
“You can definitely do it in a respectful way I am sure.”
As part of his new roles, Sloane has to travel to Melbourne for his radio commitments on a Saturday and then his TV appearances on Sunday and Tuesday.
But when the footy world comes to South Australia for the third edition of Gather Round next week, in addition to his work Sloane will also become ambassador for the state.
He and Belinda will be part of the Gather Round in the Barossa live footy show from Barossa Valley Estate on April 8 – in which ex-teammate and star Crow Izak Rankine will again be showcasing his musical talents. While on the final day of it, the Sunday Footy Show will be held live on the Torrens Riverbank.
“It is going to be great, that whole week has done so much for South Australia,” Sloane says.
“It is so good to be able to show off South Australia and the Barossa, it is 40 to 50 minutes away from the city. I am expecting a lot of people to head up there for a lunch and then maybe we will have to organise buses to get them back in to watch the footy afterwards.”
While they are both from Victoria, Sloane and Belinda are well entrenched in Adelaide and SA. A big part of this is travelling and exploring the state.
“My kids are at a beautiful age where I get to share a lot of my time with them which I will continue to do and cherish,” Sloane says. “We all get so busy but you have to do the things you love and, for me, that is family time, travel, surf, beach, a whole range of things so I will continue to make time for those things as well. The kids absolutely love going on camping trips.
“And we love discovering SA, that is probably the reason why we have stayed here for so long. It’s an amazing place for us to explore.” ■
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