Does the yo-yo run for high-priced Crows recruit Bryce Gibbs mean an AFL selection this week?

Bryce Gibbs cost the Adelaide Football Club two first-round draft picks — and is not a regular AFL player this season. How does Crows list manager Justin Reid feel about the deal now?

Bryce Gibbs with Don Pyke following a win after his arrival at the Crows from the Blues. Picture SARAH REED

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It’s AFL Round 13 this week … lucky for some, such as Crows high-priced recruit Bryce Gibbs? Not likely.

Since Round 3, Gibbs has played in the odd-numbered rounds — and missed the even-numbered rounds, with the sequence continuing against Greater Western Sydney for Round 12 on Saturday night. This left many fine judges wondering how the 2006 No. 1 draft pick could have been dropped after making an impression as a shutdown player against Melbourne All-Australian playmaker Clayton Oliver in Darwin in Round 11.

And there certainly were Giants players to hold to account at Adelaide Oval on Saturday night.

But the 21-point win against the second-ranked Greater Western Sydney leaves Crows coach Don Pyke free of any criticism from those around the nation who are bewildered by his selection policies with 30-year-old Gibbs.

Bryce Gibbs made the “homecoming” move to the Adelaide Football Club from Carlton at a high price. His repetitive absence from the AFL — as Crows coach Don Pyke favours other midfielders — does leave Adelaide list manager Justin Reid with much to reconsider. Picture: Julian Smith

At a time when Adelaide has 43 of its 44 players (injured defender Tom Doedee being the exception) in training, Gibbs is not ranked in the Crows’ best 22 players any more — less than halfway through his four-year contract at West Lakes.

Gibbs has fallen from the Crows’ fourth-best player — by their own count in the Malcolm Blight Medal — to not being among the best 24 on Saturday night. And Pyke has declared he intends to keep Gibbs in the SANFL for about a month to have the midfielder “work on a couple of things” — as was the case for the reprogramming of key forward-ruckman Josh Jenkins.

However, what would Crows list manager Justin Reid be thinking today as he watches one of his major assignments in the SANFL rather than AFL?

Reid was told by Adelaide chief executive Andrew Fagan during the 2017 AFL trade period to not leave a negotiation session with Carlton list manager Stephen Silvagni until there was a deal that brought Gibbs home to South Australia.

That meeting cost the Crows two first-round draft picks — a price they considered excessive a year earlier when the Gibbs’ move was blocked by the Blues. And there was a four-year contract with a significant salary cap hit that came with that headline trade.

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A year ago, as Gibbs was on the leaderboard for the Crows club champion count for the Malcolm Blight Medal, the deal seemed fine.

But today, with Gibbs playing in the SANFL, reflections on the trade do appear to put Reid in a difficult position. Not even that first-round draft pick coming from Carlton this year — after the Liam Stocker deal — eases the questions.

The Roast enewsletter this week will look at the Gibbs question — and another pair of saga as former AFL commissioner and current Geelong Football Club president Colin Carter seeks to change how Australian football’s record books are read. There also is the Collingwood feud that burned again as Magpies premiership coach Michael Malthouse was inducted to the Australian Football Hall of Fame.

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