North Adelaide angry as midfielder Chad O’Sullivan heads to Hills competition

NORTH Adelaide has thrown its support behind calls for tighter controls on payments in amateur football after losing Chad O’Sullivan to Torrens Valley.

NORTH Adelaide Football Club has thrown its support behind calls for tighter controls on cash in country football after it lost highly-rated midfielder Chad O’Sullivan to Hills club Torrens Valley last week.

The Roosters have now lost four players with league experience to country clubs this year and say SANFL clubs are being stung by big dollars in the bush.

“We’ve got an issue at one end where you’ve got guys who might be 29 or 30 who are at the back end of their SANFL careers and a country club approaches them with a big offer and they think ‘if I make that for three or four years I’ll do OK’,’’ North chief executive Greg Edwards said.

“But the real issue is at the other end where you have guys who are 19 to 22 year olds who are maybe in the reserves and haven’t quite got there yet.

“In our case we’ve lost guys to the country as young as 19 who are potential 200-game league players.”

Tagger Brian Fenton and highly-rated 19-year-old Jake Liston both left the Roosters pre-season to join country club Meningie, in the River Murray Football League. Tom Langford, who kicked 29 goals for North last season and was linked to some AFL clubs, now plays for Angaston in the Barossa, Light and Gawler Football Association.

Edwards said he supported a SA Community Football League review committee which is recommending a ceiling be placed on how much individuals can earn in country and amateur football.

In extreme cases, country clubs are paying players $1500-$2000 a game.

Edwards was disappointed with O’Sullivan, 29, a three-time premiership player at the Bulldogs, who left mid-season to join bottom-placed HFL club Torrens Valley.

O’Sullivan joined North last season and finished second in its best and fairest and won respect for his comeback from a bad leg break in 2009.

He had struggled for form this year.

“We are really, really disappointed as a football club and so are his (O’Sullivan’s) teammates,’’ Edwards said.

O’Sullivan said money was not a factor in his decision to leave the Roosters.

“I wasn’t enjoying my football at North Adelaide,’’ he said on Tuesday.

“It wouldn’t have mattered if we were on top of the ladder.”