Adelaide Crows offering Rory Sloane a long-term deal is not the solution to the contract dilemma

AS each round passes hope that Rory Sloane will remain at the Crows fades. But perhaps they’re going about negotiations all wrong. Long-term, Melbourne seems inevitable, so here’s how Adelaide can still emerge winners.

ONE positive for the Adelaide Football Club out of their wretched injury run has been the fact it’s kept Rory Sloane and his lingering contract negotiations off the back page.

Some scribes, club officials and many supporters were confident, (maybe hopeful) that the negotiations would be done, and pen put to paper prior to the season commencing.

As each round passes so does a little hope that he will remain at the Crows, a club he has loved and called home for the past 10 years.

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Let’s go back 12 months and revisit the scenario the club has faced. Rory comes out of contract at the end of 2018, as a restricted free agent. Starting the 2017 season in white-hot form, and of course attracting enormous attention from cashed-up Victorian teams looking to lure Sloane back home.

The talk was five million dollars over five years.

Would the Crows contemplate paying one player a million dollars a season? Was five years too risky?

Sloane would turn 32 in the last year of that contract.

As it turned out the longer the year went, the less the discussion was about money and more about what the medium- to long-term future looked like for Rory and his new wife Belinda.

Football is just one of the considerations.

Rory Sloane and Belinda Sloane at the launch of Tasting Australia's Urban Pantry and Cellar Door. Pics: Andre Castellucci

Both Rory and Belinda are highly marketable and even in the relatively small Adelaide market, each have a number of commercial agreements. There is no doubt the opportunities for both in the Melbourne market would be far greater.

Patrick Dangerfield is a perfect example — his profile and earning potential have skyrocketed since returning home to Melbourne. I’d expect similar with the Sloanes.

The opportunity to be reunited with family is another obvious drawback the club faces in its quest to get Rory to recommit.

With Belinda and Rory expecting their first child later in the year, who doesn’t want to be around their immediate family at that magnificent time and enjoy the support structures that it provides.

Enough of the negatives, let’s have a look at what is going Adelaide’s way. The man himself. Rory Sloane is one of the highest quality people I have come across in football. He has invested so much into this club. Not many could say they have given more on-field and also added to the culture off-field than the Crows vice-captain.

Rory Sloane’s future remains up in the air

Not having achieved the ultimate success would be eating away at him and the thought of leaving the club without reaching the summit would seem almost unbearable.

Can you see the dilemma?

This needs a different approach.

The Crows offering a four- or five-year deal may not necessarily be the best course of action. The thought of forgoing all the benefits of returning to Melbourne and committing to live in Adelaide for that length of time might have the opposite effect than the one that it was designed to achieve.

What if Adelaide put a one-year extension on the table?

Rory plays out this year and gives everything he has for the 2019 season before returning to Melbourne in 2020 to the club of his choice as an unrestricted free agent.

For once a player in the final year of his contract could be open and honest when asked about his future.

I think most Crows fans would accept that for the next 18 months (as he has always done) Rory would give his absolute all to helping the team have another shot at a Premiership. One issue that has slightly clouded this whole situation over the past two months has been Sloane’s foot injury.

Firstly, the exact nature of it and secondly, the unpredictability of the recovery. Prospective clubs would be well within their rights to reconsider big, long-term offers if Sloane’s season doesn’t improve from what we have seen in the first nine rounds. This may be another reason why a one-year extension may suit the Sloane camp.

With the interruptions Rory has had and the amount of time spent on the sidelines, finding peak form in the back half of the year may be difficult.

A full pre-season leading into 2019 and returning to being one of the premier players in the competition, can only improve his currency leading into an unrestricted free agency negotiation.

The longer we get into the year the more Crows fans get understandably nervous, particularly on the back of Jake Lever and Dangerfield in recent years.

To have the ultimate success, so many things have to go right for you.

Continually losing key figures within the team makes that task even more difficult. So maybe trying to get at least one year with a fit Sloane, Bryce Gibbs and Brodie Smith on the park together among the Crows other stars is better than the much harder task of getting Rory to make a longer-term commitment.

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