AFL trade rewind: Adelaide Crows’ biggest bargains and blunders
Adelaide’s move to bring Andrew McLeod to West Lakes in 1994 will go down as one of the best trades of all-time. The Bryce Gibbs deal won’t, however. Have your say.
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Adelaide has closed some great deals at the trade table, especially in the club’s early years, but the Crows have also made some big blunders.
Andrew McLeod for Chris Groom in 1994 will be talked about forever, so will the Bryce Gibbs trade in 2017 - albeit for very different reasons.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, of course, but here is a look at Adelaide’s mixed trade history.
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BARGAINS
ANDREW MCLEOD FROM FREMANTLE FOR CHRIS GROOM — 1994
“If I’d seen Andrew McLeod play for one minute he’d have been playing for me.”
That’s what Fremantle’s inaugural coach Gerard Neesham told Mike Sheahan on Fox Footy’s Open Mike in 2015. But with little knowledge of McLeod or “anything about his football”, Neesham and the Dockers traded the Port Adelaide Magpies wingman, who was pre-listed by the club in the build-up to its first season, to Adelaide for Chris Groom.
At that time, Groom was an up-and-coming key-forward, who had played 12 games for the Crows.
McLeod retired 16 years later as an AFL Hall Of Fame member with 340 games, two premierships medals, two Norm Smith medals, five All-Australian jumpers and three Club Champion awards to his name.
Darren Jarman from Hawthorn as part of three-way trade with Essendon — 1995
It cost Adelaide Sean Wellman, who went on to become a 178-game premiership defender at Essendon, but what it received in return became even more valuable.
Jarman returned home to South Australia, after five seasons at Hawthorn, and booted six goals — five in the final quarter — in the grand final win in 1997 before bagging another five majors as the Crows went back-to-back against North Melbourne,
Adelaide game up pick No. 25 and Wellman to get Jarman and pick No. 45 in the draft, which was used on Scott Hodges, in return.
Bernie Vince for Pick No. 23 (Matt Crouch) — 2013
Four years after being crowned Adelaide’s club champion, and after 129 games at West Lakes, Vince was traded to Melbourne for pick No. 23, 12 months before he was set to become a free agent. Vince wanted to stay but he had currency on the open market and Adelaide was desperate to get back into the early rounds of the 2013 national draft after it was stripped of its first two selections as part of the Kurt Tippett salary cap sanctions.
While Vince went on to play 100 games at the Demons, Crouch was All-Australian and Club Champion, after winning more possession than any other player in the competition, in his fourth season in 2017. His older brother has left, and Crouch has battled inconsistency and injury since, but he’s set to be a long-term leader at the club.
MORE TRADE HISTORY
Collingwood’s biggest trade bargains and busts
BUSTS
WAYNE CAREY FROM NORTH MELBOURNE FOR PICK NO. 2 AND 18
At 32, Carey, following his exit from North Melbourne in 2002, arrived at the Crows – after turning down offers from Collingwood, Essendon, Hawthorn and Sydney - with 244 games and 671 goals to his name and the club hoped he would become the key target which it lacked in attack.
But, despite glimpses, the seven-time All-Australian battled injury in his two seasons at West Lakes, booting 56 goals from 28 appearances.
There was nothing specifically wrong with the idea but, given the associated risks, it was what Adelaide gave up – the pick it received from Richmond for Kane Johnson (No. 2), along with its second-round selection (No. 18) - which was the problem. North Melbourne took Daniel Wells at pick No. 2 with the star midfielder going on to play 243 games for the club.
BRYCE GIBBS FROM CARLTON FOR PICK NO. 10 AND 16 + PICK SWAP – 2017
After missing out from a father-son eligibility point-of-view in 2006 – and then not being prepared to pay Carlton’s asking price in 2016 – Gibbs finally became a Crow in the 2017 off-season.
The club hoped the addition of the classy midfielder, who played 231 games in 11 seasons at the Blues, would help elevate an already-strong group. Fast forward three years and Gibbs has retired after 37 games with Adelaide and the Crows are wooden-spooners.
Overall, after Adelaide list manager Justin Reid worked a future second-round pick swap, the Crows’ draft-hand didn’t take a huge hit, given it received pick No. 12 in return for Charlie Cameron, a selection it used on young forward Darcy Fogarty. But in the current situation, with Adelaide in rebuild mode, a further two high draft picks, with two years under their belt, would have have helped fast tracked the process.
RICHARD TAMBLING FROM RICHMOND FOR FIRST-ROUND COMPENSATION PICK (NATHAN BOCK) – 2010
The much-maligned Tambling battled injury and then opportunity during his three-year stint at West Lakes, making just 16 senior appearances.
The free agency compensation pick Adelaide received for Nathan Bock was the main part of the deal and Richmond held the pick (No.20), before on-trading it back to the Suns in 2013. They used it on Jack Leslie, who was delisted in August 2019 after 28 AFL games.
It’s hard to know how Adelaide would’ve used the end-of-first-round pick given it was available to be used in any one of the next five drafts. Players of note taken in the second round in the following two years include Scott Lycett, Jeremy Howe, Luke Parker, Joel Hamling and Brad Hill.
But it was in 2012 – the first year of draft sanction following the Kurt Tippett saga – when the Crows, who didn’t enter the draft until pick No. 66, might have needed it most.
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