Adelaide Crows’ defining moment No 22: Wayne Carey chooses Adelaide
WAYNE Carey leaving North Melbourne in disgrace to join Adelaide in the 2003 and 2004 seasons is No 22 in our list of 25 defining moments of the Crows.
It was one of the most talked-about and controversial player appointments in modern football, when Wayne Carey left North Melbourne in disgrace and won a lifeline with Adelaide in the 2003 and 2004 seasons. Scott Walsh talks to Adelaide’s then football manager John Reid about the negotiations, the deal, the on-field outcomes and the off-field events.
Scott Walsh: How did the process to sign Wayne Carey begin?
John Reid: His manager at the time was his brother, Dick, so I got hold of a number and we rang. We’d just got out of a match committee meeting to first of all see if we were interested — what are we taking on, what are the pros and the cons? We all agreed that it was worth the exercise because we felt we had a pretty reasonable side and he could have been the missing link to take us to the next level.
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THE LIST SO FAR
No. 22: Carey chooses Adelaide
No. 23: The Demolition of Fremantle
No. 24: Independence from the SANFL
No. 25: 1993 preliminary final loss to Essendon
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Walsh: When you say “we”, who was involved?
Reid: It was (coach) Gary Ayres, (chief executive) Steven Trigg and myself.
Walsh: What was the first meeting like?
Reid: We wanted to get him, but we weren’t going to sell our soul to get him. We went to Sydney and met Wayne and his brother. It was a couple of hours, we talked footy, we discussed his issues, asked what sort of baggage we would be taking on.
Walsh: Money?
Reid: We talked money. I reckon he got $350,000 the first year and $400,000 the next, so it wasn’t megabucks. We weren’t prepared to pay him more than we were paying the McLeods and Ricciutos and those blokes because we knew there was an element of risk.
Walsh: Was money a factor?
Reid: There were a couple of other clubs involved, and I reckon a couple might have had better money on them. But he didn’t quibble about the dough. It was ‘there’s our offer’, and they took it.
Walsh: What was it about the Adelaide offer that appealed to him?
Reid: I think the circumstances seemed to suit him better. He decided Adelaide was the right fit for him team-wise and the fact that Adelaide was away from Melbourne.
Walsh: How about the deal itself? It was a complicated process that involved Richmond as well.
Reid: That was the other part, how to actually get him here. North wanted a top-10 pick and we didn’t have one. We had Kane Johnson, who was keen to go back to Melbourne, so we got Richmond’s first pick which was No. 4. We did that the night before and they (North) said ‘Yeah, that’s okay, see you in the morning’, and the next morning they said ‘No, we want both your first-round draft picks’, so we gave them No. 20 as well.
Walsh: Did you pay too much?
Reid: I think we got squeezed a bit on what we gave away, but we picked up Jason Torney from Richmond as well, and Torney was a good player for us.
Walsh: How big a factor was the moral issue for Adelaide, given Carey’s departure from North?
Reid: We questioned him pretty heavily on that. He was back with his wife. Things went awry for them after our time, but at that stage they were moving on.
Walsh: There was an incident early on, the party at The Grand.
Reid: That hit the headlines. Triggy and I, we still say of all the things we’ve been involved with in footy, sacked coaches, this was the biggest. It was torturous for a couple of days. We got it sorted, but we didn’t need it and he didn’t need it, in light of what had gone on. But he didn’t cause any other grief. Around the club he was handy with young blokes and did what was expected of him with all the promotional gear. In fact, he went over and above most of the time.
Walsh: The record shows he played 28 games for the Crows and you reached the semi-final in 2003. Was it the right call?
Reid: Unfortunately injury played a part. In the first year he was just getting into some good form and he smacked his knee into the square point post. That buggered him for that year. The following year he got driven into the turf and that finished him. So we didn’t have anything go our way. Some people might say that’s the footy gods, you shouldn’t have gone that way. That’s easy to say afterwards. At the time, we had done our due diligence the best we could. Was it the right decision? People will debate it. I honestly believe there was nothing wrong with the decision. It was a good fit and if he hadn’t got injured I reckon we would’ve got some pretty good footy out of it.
The Crows’ 25 defining moments were selected by inaugural captain Chris McDermott and chief football writer Michelangelo Rucci. This list will culminate at Number One when the Crows celebrate their 25th anniversary against Hawthorn on June 18.