AFL trade 2024: Matt Turner reviews the Crows’ trade period

The Crows have completed a strong off-season led by list boss Justin Reid, adding veteran talents and keeping their top pick. Now it’s time to deliver, writes Matt Turner.

James Peatling. Picture: Michael Klein

A no-excuses year is looming for Adelaide on the back of its strong off-season.

First, the Crows appointed their inaugural coaching director, Brisbane premiership assistant Murray Davis, to beef-up the support team around Matthew Nicks.

Now Adelaide has ended the trade period with three additions who immediately improve its list.

And it has done so while managing to keep a prized pick, No. 4, in what recruiters consider a really strong national draft.

Melbourne’s Alex Neal-Bullen and GWS duo Isaac Cumming and James Peatling are all between 24 and 28 years old, and should be first-choice players.

The fact they have finals experience is a bonus for a team that is without any since 2017.

Neal-Bullen, 28, will become the only premiership winner in the Crows’ squad.

James Peatling is on his way to Adelaide. Picture: Getty Images

Cumming, 26, has played in semi-finals in three of the past four seasons, as well as a preliminary final last year.

Peatling, 24, capped a breakout campaign by booting two goals in the Giants’ semi-final defeat to eventual premier Brisbane.

Adelaide wanted recruits who had featured in September to help a squad that in 2024 was the fifth-youngest in the league and had played the fourth-fewest total games.

The Crows have often mentioned the youth and inexperience of their list as the losses have piled up during a rebuild that began in Nicks’s first year at the helm, in 2020.

There is a fine line between context and excuses.

Adelaide’s rebuild has been deliberately measured.

Neal-Bullen is the oldest player to join the Crows since it brought in 31-year-old North Melbourne wingman Sam Gibson at the end of 2017 off the back of its grand final loss.

Cumming and fringe forward Chris Burgess, who was 27 when he joined 12 months ago, have been the only recruits older than 24 since the rebuild started.

Bringing in three in one hit says a lot about the club’s ambition for 2025.

The Crows feel they can bounce back from this year’s disappointment and mix it with the best sides.

Matthew Nicks will need to deliver. Picture Dean Martin

Nicks has two more years left on an extension he signed in March but you suspect he needs to make the top eight next season to be there beyond that.

No coach in the AFL era (since 1991) has missed the finals in each of his first six years at a club and been given a seventh.

After conceding it may have been “underdone” in the coaches box, Adelaide has now given Nicks and his team the tools it needs to take that next step.

In 2023, the club cited three umpiring blunders late in games as context – some might say excuses – for why the Crows fell a win-and-a-half short of finals, finishing 10th.

This year, it was a lengthy injury list and suspension.

Having a string of key players sidelined exposed a lack of depth but that should not be an issue next season thanks to the recruits and the club’s youngsters getting closer to their primes.

Adelaide list manager Justin Reid had a terrific trade period.

His record over the past decade has been heavily scrutinised this year as the Crows slumped to a 15th-placed finish, well short of expectations.

But convincing Cumming to pick Adelaide instead of Port and winning a wide race for Peatling were coups, on top of adding the underrated Neal-Bullen.

Whether Reid is at West Lakes next season to enjoy what his latest haul produces remains to be seen, given he has been linked to the role as Collingwood’s football boss.