The dramatic changing of the guard at Adelaide Crows since 2017 AFL grand final disaster

Just four years after Adelaide’s grand final loss to Richmond, the Crows’ playing list has turned over so much, the squad now is nearly unrecognisable to the team which succumbed to the Tigers.

Rory Sloane and Daniel Talia dejected after the 2017 AFL Grand Final.

THE remarkable transformation of the Crows is almost complete.

Four years after starting the 2017 grand final as warm favourite – and appearing to be on the verge of a dominant era – Adelaide has, amazingly, only six members of its grand final 22 still on its list.

It is a stunning player turnover.

After its latest list renovation, grand final captain Taylor Walker, current skipper Rory Sloane, midfielders Rory Laird, Matt Crouch and Paul Seedsman and defender Luke Brown are the only survivors at West Lakes from the team that was upset in the grand final by Richmond by 48 points.

Of the 16 departures, 10 landed at other clubs (some of them have since retired), four were delisted and two retired as Crows.

Two other members of the 2017 squad, forward Mitch McGovern, who kicked 20 goals in 13 games during an injury-riddled campaign, and defender Alex Keath, also are no longer at Adelaide, having joined Carlton and the Western Bulldogs respectively.

Matt Crouch of the Crows reacts after losing the AFL grand final.

In contrast, Richmond has 15 members of its 2017 grand final team still contracted.

While the Tigers, who broke a 37-year flag drought in upsetting the Crows at the MCG on September 30, 2017, created an unlikely dynasty by winning three premierships in four years, Adelaide went in the opposite direction.

Its fall from grace from minor premier and attacking juggernaut – the 2017 team averaged a league-best 110 points in the home-and-away season and scored 247 more points than any other side – was just as shocking.

Since winning their first McClelland Trophy as minor premiers since 2005 and smashing Geelong by 10 goals in the 2017 preliminary final to march into their third grand final, the Crows have not featured in the major round.

They have missed a club-record four consecutive final series, falling from second to 12th in 2018, then finishing 11th, last (for the first time) and 15th with a 32-51 win-loss count.

The crash from contender to pretender started with the shock defections of two players who would become All-Australians at their new clubs – Charlie Cameron to Brisbane and Jake Lever to Melbourne.

Rory Sloane and Daniel Talia dejected after the 2017 AFL Grand Final.

Within months of their untimely departures came the infamous and controversial pre-season training camp on the Gold Coast that fractured the group and signalled the start of the end for coach Don Pyke and head of football Brett Burton.

Now, with dual All-Australian defender Daniel Talia and dual All-Australian nominee, mobile forward Tom Lynch, having been sent packing at the end of the season, David Mackay retiring and Jake Kelly joining Essendon as a free agent, there are only six grand final players left standing at the club in what has been a rapid and dramatic changing of the guard.

Four of its top five goalkickers from its 2017 high-octane scoring machine have gone.

Between them, Eddie Betts (55 goals), Josh Jenkins (45), Tom Lynch (31) and Cameron (29) bagged 160 majors.

Only Walker, who kicked 54 goals, is left standing – and only just after his AFL suspension for racially vilifying North Adelaide’s Robbie Young in a SANFL game this year – from the team that frightened opposition defences.

The clear-out has happened quickly and, in some cases, mercilessly.

Once Pyke resigned at the end of 2019 following a thorough external review of the club’s football department that resulted in Burton losing his job, the Crows moved into full rebuild mode.

Jake Lever contest during the AFL grand final between the Crows and Richmond.

It resulted in their first wooden spoon last year, under new coach Matthew Nicks, with just three wins in a shortened, 17-round season because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This year Adelaide showed signs of life, posting a 7-15 win-loss record, to finish 15th.

Much rebuilding work is still to be done.

But there are green shoots.

Nicks has surrounded himself with a high-quality coaching panel, led by senior assistant Scott Burns, and secured the highly-sought-after services of fitness guru Darren Burgess.

The former Power fitness boss arrives from Melbourne, having helped mastermind the club’s first premiership since 1964.

Former AFL recruiter Matthew Rendell claims Adelaide won the trade period by securing Burgess, who has an outstanding track record of getting the best out of players.

Talented but enigmatic Crows forward Darcy Fogarty will be a test case at Crowland.

Adelaide also drew a line in the recruitment sand when it won the battle with Port Adelaide for homesick Swan Jordan Dawson, signing him to a lucrative four-year deal.

It was a rare win for the Crows in the recruiting stakes against their fierce hometown rival and sent a message to their supporters that they mean business.

At the start of the 2018 season, the average age of Adelaide’s list was 24 years, 192 days.

This dropped to 23 years, 246 days at the start of 2021.

With Mackay, 33, Lynch, 31, and Talia, 30, among the latest departures and some teenagers to be picked up in next month’s draft, that average will drop even further.

A new era dawns.

CROWS’ 2017 GRAND FINAL SIDE

REMAINING

Luke Brown

Matt Crouch

Rory Laird

Paul Seedsman

Rory Sloane

Taylor Walker

GONE

Rory Atkins (Gold Coast)

Eddie Betts (Carlton/retired)

Charlie Cameron (Brisbane)

Brad Crouch (St Kilda)

Richard Douglas (delisted)

Kyle Hartigan (Hawthorn)

Hugh Greenwood (Gold Coast)

Sam Jacobs (GWS/retired)

Josh Jenkins (Geelong/retired)

Jake Kelly (Essendon)

Riley Knight (delisted)

Jake Lever (Melbourne)

Tom Lynch (delisted)

David Mackay (retired)

Andy Otten (retired)

Daniel Talia (delisted)

Originally published as The dramatic changing of the guard at Adelaide Crows since 2017 AFL grand final disaster