Adelaide Crows defender Jake Lever - and forward Mitch McGovern - have fallen out of contract and into form at the right time for a deal of a lifetime

ADELAIDE fans are to get another reminder of how professional sport is about the money as the bidding rises for out-of-contract Crows pair Jake Lever and Mitch McGovern.

LUCKY PAIR: Out-of-contract Crows duo Jake Lever and Mitch McGovern can expect keen bidding for their signatures, particularly from teams in their home states of Victoria and WA respectively. Picture: Picture Sarah Reed

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PITY the switchboard operator at the Adelaide Football Club.

If there are same calls being made to West Lakes as there are to radio FIVEaa - where young Crows defender Jake Lever on Tuesday offered an “update” on his contract play - it would be painful.

Perhaps after losing Nathan Bock, Phil Davis, Kurt Tippett, Jack Gunston and Patrick Dangerfield (to differing circumstances), Crows fans have become pessimistic when they hear a player say he is quite happy to let his contract negotiations play out to the end of the season.

Time for some perspective - and a reminder this is the professional era of Australian football.

Lever is 21. He was called to the Adelaide Football Club from his Victorian home - rather than choose to be a Crow - by the 14th call in the 2014 AFL national draft. He has developed into a strong intercept mark defender who will be a valuable piece in any club’s premiership puzzle.

Lever also has many suitors beyond Adelaide - the Western Bulldogs, Collingwood, Hawthorn and Melbourne. The list should get longer.

There are at least 40 AFL players who wish they could get any contract from their current clubs for next season. They are destined for the delisting yard.

This is Lever’s once-in-a-career opportunity that has fallen perfectly for him with the new collective bargaining agreement that has added $1.8 billion to the players’ pot until 2022. And Lever would be foolish to ignore the auction that only increases as AFL list managers watch him take 11 marks to derail the Western Bulldogs on a wet night at Adelaide Oval, as was the case last Friday.

Lever’s value today is said to be $800,000 a season. He could easily command a five-year contract.

The question is not about Lever’s intent. That is simple. He just leaves his manager to work through the dream offers ... and increase the nightmare for the switchboard operator at Adelaide or whoever works through the inbox to chief executive Andrew Fagan’s email.

Inaugural Crows coach Graham Cornes says Adelaide should do “whatever it takes” to lock both Lever and out-of-contract forward Mitch McGovern - the young “book ends” - to new deals at West Lakes.

Indeed, Adelaide could put attractive offers to Lever and McGovern to end the saga now. Both know what the market is offering for their signature - and how much less they are prepared to take to stay at West Lakes.

But - as was noted last year with key forward Josh Jenkins’ protracted negotiations - the Crows have a reputation for starting low. They annoyed Jenkins with the first offers last year. And if it is true that McGovern was offered $370,000 a season in a new deal at Adelaide, expect another saga to match that of Jenkins.

Adelaide coach Don Pyke’s assertion that both Lever and McGovern want to stay at West Lakes is well based. But in this professional era - that has allowed Adelaide to score Eddie Betts, Curtly Hampton, Paul Seedsman and Kyle Cheney from rival clubs in recent years - there is a price to pay for a player’s signature.

And blessed are the players - such as Lever - who have multiple bidders.

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