Crows should value out-of-contract forward Tom Lynch beyond the average AFL salary

CROWS list manager Justin Reid and recruiting manager Hamish Ogilvie would be keen for a big say in this year’s AFL national draft. But it should not be engineered by moving on forward Tom Lynch

Recontracting Crows forward Tom Lynch, left, should be a priority for Adelaide - and should deliver Lynch more than an average AFL salary. Picture: Sarah Reed

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SOMETIMES a player is never fully appreciated until he leaves an AFL club. Ask Port Adelaide about Shaun Burgoyne ...

Is Adelaide about to make the same misjudgment with team leader Tom Lynch, the forward who connects the Crows attack better than most of the side’s midfielders?

At a time when the majority of Crows fans keep wondering (whether it is real or not) why top-line players seek to leave West Lakes, there is the need to observe an emerging list-management theme at Adelaide also encourages players to leave.

Lynch, 28 in September, is out of contract. He tried to remove this uncertainty - and a potential sideshow - by starting negotiations for a new deal in October.

Three years for security. Salary? The average AFL player wage next year will be $380,000 and reach almost $400,000 in 2021 at the end of any forthcoming three-season contract for Lynch.

Is Lynch an “average” player?

By the Crows’ own measure, the Malcolm Blight Medal for the club champion title, Lynch was Adelaide’s seventh best player last season ranking behind midfielders Matt Crouch and Rory Sloane, All-Australian defender Rory Laird, lead ruckman Sam Jacobs, 2010 club champion Richard Douglas and captain Taylor Walker. Lynch is above average on this measure at his club.

Lynch has made the 40-man nomination list for the past two AFL All-Australian teams. This puts the Victorian in the top bracket of the league’s 800 player fraternity.

So by these measures, Adelaide owes Lynch more than an average salary. The weekend reports that the Crows have put salary figures ranging between $450,000 and the low $500,000s to Lynch’s management will only increase the image of Adelaide “low balling” its players in contract negotiations ...

Or they are seeking to push Lynch into the market where he would enhance Adelaide’s options to parcel and repackage picks in November’s alluring AFL national draft that has significant South Australian talent on offer?

Tom Lynch of the Crows celebrates after kicking a goal against the Suns at Adelaide Oval in April. Picture: Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images

Either concept is an intriguing moment of list management at West Lakes where the Crows have twice before overlooked temptation to unload talent - both times with a key forward-ruckman and to Brisbane: Kurt Tippett in 2011 and Josh Jenkins in 2016.

Lynch, a 115-game player who started at St Kilda as a first-round draftee in 2008, should command no less than $550,000 a season and should average $600,000 as a base salary across a three-year contract.

His form, his contribution to the team game, his acceptance by the Adelaide player base in their leadership group indicates this would be money well spent - and earned the hard way.

There might not be the merchandise element to the Crows fan shop as there is with fellow forward Eddie Betts. But the value of a team player should not be under-estimated.

And in a season when Adelaide has had its scoring power fall - and its midfield again become exposed as one-dimensional and one-paced - the Crows would be foolish to underestimate the value Lynch presents as a hard-running, far-ranging forward who links the game to higher-paid forwards.