Former GWS AFLW All-Australian makes surprise announcement: In 2020, I’ll be an Adelaide Crow
Star SA footballer Courtney Gum is “excited” to be part of Adelaide’s 2020 AFLW premiership defence, confirming she has shelved retirement plans after the Crows declared their interest.
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South Australian veteran footballer Courtney Gum has confirmed she’ll come out of retirement and play with the Crows for their premiership defence season in 2020.
Gum retired in April after playing 14 games for Greater Western Sydney.
Following speculation she was making a comeback — sparked by the news she had nominated for the AFLW draft on October 22 — the 38-year-old mid-forward told The Advertiser she was excited to join the reigning premiers and was looking forward to returning to top-level footy.
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“I really had retired in my head and I honestly didn’t expect at all to get a phone call from any club about playing at my age,” Gum said.
“I always harp on about opportunities and taking them as they come up.”
The 2018 AFLPA’s Most Valuable Player (an honour won by Erin Phillips in both 2017 and 2019) plays for South Adelaide in the SANFLW, but headed to Sydney for a shot at AFLW level after being overlooked by the Crows in their first three seasons.
She was named an All-Australian midfielder and in averaged 13 disposals a game this season.
Crows general manager of football administration Phil Harper confirmed Gum would be picked up by Adelaide in the draft after a spot opened up on the Crows’ list following premiership midfielder Hannah Martin tearing her ACL in July.
“Once Hannah went down with her knee, (coach Matthew Clarke) said ‘I’m going to try and see whether Courtney will play for us’,” Harper recalled.
“And so he rang her up thinking it was a bit of a long shot.
“But she knows a lot of the girls on our list and would love to have one more go, so it was a marriage of; ‘We’ve got a spot for a year, she’s got a year where she could probably do it again’.”
Harper also praised the leadership Gum would bring to West Lakes.
“It’s a great coup for us,” he said.
“She’s a leader, she’s experienced and she’ll be good, because we’ve got some quite youngies down in our forward line and we can see her playing in the forward line around Danielle Ponter and the Eloise Jones.
“She’ll be very good for us, we think, as long as her body holds up, but she seems to be very fit at the moment.
“That’s a win.”
The Crows will head into October’s AFLW draft with seven picks — possibly eight — with Harper confirming there was doubt on one more player on their current list.
He said the club’s draft’s strategy would be to top up its list with three or four players straight out of the under-18s and a further three or four players aged between 21 and 26 straight out of the SANFL.
“The good part is that there is some real talent in South Australia in the SANFLW,” Harper said.
“The increase in the ability in the local competition is starting to hit and there’s a wave coming in behind it of young 15, 16, 17-year-old girls who are damn good, so that’s great.”
The AFLW draft combine starts in Melbourne next week.
SA has four players attending the combine – Montana McKinnon, Madison Newman, Jaimi Tabb and Hannah Munyard.
The 2019 AFLW draft is on October 22.
Adelaide’s first selection currently sits at pick 14.