Bombers yet to target SANFL in top-up player raid

NO NEWS is good news. That is the attitude SANFL clubs are adopting as they wait to hear if Essendon wants Croweaters to bolster its depleted list.

Former Melbourne Mark Jamar (left, pictured with Matthew Leuenberger) is Essendon’s latest top-up player signing. Picture: Wayne Ludbey.

NO NEWS is good news.

That is the attitude SANFL clubs are adopting as they wait to hear if Essendon wants Croweaters to bolster its depleted list.

Essendon has been searching the nation for top-up players since the Court of Arbitration for Sport handed down season-long anti-doping bans to 12 Bombers last month.

At presstime, the club had signed seven top-up players – Ryan Crowley, Matt Dea, Mark Jamar, James Kelly, James Polkinghorne, Jonathan Simpkin and Mathew Stokes – and could add another three under AFL Commission regulations.

Essendon contacted West Adelaide last month to inquire about three players but Bloods football manager Andrew Marks said there had been no further discussions.

“It’d be a good thing for the SANFL if no one (from the league) went,” Marks said.

Officials from Central District, Glenelg, North Adelaide, Norwood, South Adelaide, Sturt and Woodville-West Torrens said Essendon did not appear to be interested in any of their players.

The Bombers have until March 15 – a week before the start of the AFL and SANFL seasons – to finalise their recruiting.

“We’ve heard nothing and we’re hoping that we don’t,” Eagles football manager Luke Powell said.

There was some speculation the Bombers might target Nick O’Brien, who played 14 matches for the club from 2012-15 before joining the Eagles in the off-season.

But Powell said the midfielder had been “training as normal and was settling over here”.

“It’s been business as usual,” he said.

The top-up players must have been on an AFL list in the past two years, unless granted permission by the league commission.

Essendon can sign only one player from any club other than the Bombers’ VFL side.