Conversion from cricket complete as Adelaide Crow Alex Keath named to make his AFL debut
ALEX Keath will make the transition from cricket to AFL on Friday night with his debut for Adelaide in the top-of-the-table clash with Geelong at Adelaide Oval.
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NEW AFL Commission chairman Richard Goyder wanted the $1.8 billion pay deal for AFL players to signal Australian football as the place to be on the domestic sporting landscape.
“It ensures Australian football remains the No. 1 sport of choice for the best Australian athletes,” Goyder said at Adelaide Oval last month.
The Adelaide Football Club has reaffirmed as much in the past eight weeks with basketball convert Hugh Greenwood featuring — and now cricketer Alex Keath to debut at the Friday Night Football top-of-the-table clash with Geelong at Adelaide Oval.
Keath, 25, was upgraded from the Crows rookie list on Thursday to cover Adelaide’s holes in defence caused by the loss through hamstring injuries of Jake Lever and Kyle Hartigan.
The cricket all-rounder played seven first-class games and 16 one-day domestic games for Victoria from 2010 and five games for the Melbourne Stars in the Big Bash League before moving to the Adelaide Strikers and looking to Australian football last year.
Keath becomes the first first-class cricketer to reach AFL ranks since 2002, following Port Adelaide and Carlton wingman Craig Bradley, who put away the bat as a South Australian Sheffield Shield player to establish an outstanding Australian football career.
Keath, the co-captain of Adelaide’s reserves team in the SANFL, advances to the AFL with Crows coach Don Pyke insisting the cricketer’s rise is not only from necessity.
“He’s earned it. He’s performed really well in the SANFL,” said Pyke, whose brother James played both league football in the SANFL and cricket for SA in the 1980s.
“Alex is a really strong competitor,” added Pyke of the 197cm, 98kg Keath. “His attack on the ball and his ball use is really efficient as well.
“He’s got some speed and some competitive spirit that we like.
“He comes in as a tall defender, and Geelong have some talls down in their forward line. Without Lever and Hartigan, there is a spot available for him.”
Lever was injured during Adelaide’s 46-point win against Melbourne in Darwin on Saturday night.
“It’s just too tight on a six-day turnaround,” Pyke said,
“It’s nothing major, so we’re really hopeful he’ll be right for the following game (against Collingwood at the MCG on Sunday week).”
Crows vice-captain Rory Sloane is tracking to play against the Cats despite the concerning concussion he suffered against Melbourne in the third term of the 46-point win in Darwin on Saturday night.
And key forward Josh Jenkins is also expected to be named in the Adelaide 22 on Thursday evening despite having a serious bout of gastro that put him in bed for two days this week.
Pyke declared Sloane would have to “go backwards not to play”.
“But it is not about Rory wanting to be a hero, pushing himself forward — he has to be right to play,” Pyke said.
Pyke is expecting Brownlow Medallist Patrick Dangerfield to start for Geelong.
“We’ll prepare as if he is going to play,” Pyke said.
michelangelo.rucci@news.com.au
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