Adelaide Crows trade coups, off-field signings set them up well for 2025 season | Graham Cornes
The AFL’s silly season is only just beginning. But Graham Cornes says if the early results are any sign, Crows fans can get excited about 2025.
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Now the silly season begins – and this year it looks even sillier than ever.
The AFL trade period! It doesn’t start till Monday at 10.30am, but there has already been a ridiculous amount of intrigue and yes, double-dealing.
There are so many questions. First one: why can so many players simply walk out on contracts they previously were willing to sign? Clayton Oliver, Shai Bolton, Daniel Rioli to name a few.
Second one: how can it be possible for a perennial premiership contender like Geelong to recruit all three of Bailey Smith, Clayton Oliver and Jack Martin?
Remember how they were also able to steal one of the game’s best forwards in Jeremy Cameron from GWS?
The draft and the salary cap system is but a farce that somehow they are able to manipulate.
It impugns the very integrity of the AFL.
Still, if the system allows them to get away with it, the other teams have to be similarly as ruthless and devious.
Perhaps Port Adelaide has those qualities woven into its DNA.
I’m not sure the Crows do. In the pre-trade jousting Port has trumped the Crows for the services of Jack Lukosius, whose career at the Gold Coast had stalled under new coach Damien Hardwick.
Depending on where they play him, Lukosius will be a star at Port Adelaide.
All the talk has been about him playing in the forward lines but he’s not a key forward.
He’s more likely to be the third tall forward, but that won’t solve Port’s biggest problem which is the lack of a genuine power-forward.
With his size, mobility and a beautiful kick, Lukosius would be more effective as a rebounding defender.
And that is where he will be most needed if the still contracted Dan Houston does walk out on the club.
Attracting Lukosius is a coup for Port but the club’s fans can expect little else.
They have no early draft picks to deal with.
At the moment Port has only picks 36 and 54 to trade, a legacy of the capital required to get Jason Horne-Francis to the club.
The only chance they will have to enter the draft earlier is if they do trade away one of their stars like Houston, or Ollie Lord who has attracted interest from clubs in Victoria.
However, if Port is to improve on that preliminary final finish, the improvement will have to come from within and it’s hard to see how and from who.
The Crows are in a much better position in the draft (finishing in 15th place on the ladder has some advantage).
At the moment, Adelaide enters the draft at pick four, with picks 25, 42 and 60 to follow.
They might be tempted to trade away pick number four but this is a draft that is laden with midfield talent and Adelaide’s most pressing need is for an elite midfielder.
It would be tactical folly and a PR disaster if the club was to trade it away.
In this pre-trade, pre-draft period, the Adelaide Football Club has been busy in attempting to bolster its football department and its playing list, and one senses there is still more to come.
Already, three handy players have committed to Adelaide. Admittedly, handy doesn’t mean matchwinning but all three should improve the Crows for season 2024.
Alex Neal-Bullen comes home to Adelaide after a significant 176 games and a premiership with Melbourne. He will improve Adelaide’s forward line as well as adding leadership and experience.
Then there is the duo from GWS. Defender Isaac Cumming, originally from Broken Hill via North Adelaide, has chosen to come to Adelaide as a free-agent.
He’s been compared to Jordan Dawson with his ball use and should settle on the Crows halfback line.
But the one who has attracted the most excitement and, for me, appears to have the most up-side is James Peatling.
A New South Welshman via Pennant Hills and Sydney University, he’s been a slow starter coming off the Giants rookie list but if his highlight reel is anything to go by, he has enormous upside.
In the Crows’ football department, there has been much discussion about the club trying to attract highly respected football operator, Graham Wright, to Adelaide.
Wright, a premiership player with Collingwood had a long association with Hawthorn and Alastair Clarkson during the Hawks era of dominance and was influential in Collingwood’s 2023 premiership.
Crows chief executive Tim Silvers, who had been able to observe Wright’s influence first-hand, was very keen to bring him to Adelaide to work in football operations, but it seems there have been other more attractive options in Victoria for him.
It’s always difficult trying to get football people to move from Melbourne when it is the epicentre of football operations.
However, Adelaide has moved to strengthen its coaching panel with the appointment of Murray Davis as coaching director.
Davis comes fresh from Brisbane trailed by the afterglow of a successful coaching program.
The Lions were close in 2023, going down to Collingwood by four points but triumphed this year with an emphatic 60-point thrashing of Sydney.
Who would not want to have an insight to that program, particularly when Brisbane had to confront, then overcome, huge challenges during this season?
Remember they were in 13th position behind Adelaide after round 10.
Davis may not be a familiar face but his experience is extensive. After coaching in his own right in Darwin he has served as both a backline and forward line coach over 13 years in Brisbane.
Insiders at the Lions say he is a very good people-person who is popular with the players.
Importantly he brings with him the intellectual property of Chris Fagan’s premiership campaign.
As the Crows struggled last season to live up to pre-season expectations, there had been much discussion about the composition of the Crows coaching panel.
Matthew Nicks was still a young coach. Did he need a senior assistant?
Having done the hard work to restore the morale and self-respect of the playing group; having established healthy relationships with his players; having introduced and utilised modern-day coaching concepts like “cohesion”, “connections” and “inclusiveness”, did he have the tactical capability to take the Crows to the next level?
It’s an insulting question to ask of any senior AFL coach. It’s hard to hear if it’s directed at you, but it’s a fair one if the results are not evident.
However, I think Nicks is pragmatic enough to understand criticism should never be shunned or ignored as there is likely to be constructive elements within.
Even if Murray Davis’s ultimate ambition is to coach an AFL team in his own right, Nicksy will welcome the assistance.
Besides, the Crows biggest weaknesses last season had nothing to do with tactical or coaching inadequacies.
The midfield was not powerful enough. Their skill level let them down on too many occasions as turnovers hurt them badly. And all too often they mentally succumbed when they were expected to win.
Skill levels and the psychology of sport you can address, but sheer midfield talent is harder to acquire.
That’s why that pick four in this year’s draft is vital. Regardless of all that, the Crows must improve. Anything less than a finals appearance will be a failure.
But it’s all academic at the moment. It’s the silly season.
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