AFL news: All the pre-season latest from the Crows and Power
Mid-season recruit Brett Turner says he was frustrated with ‘changing goalposts’ during his 136 days at the Crows. But the club sees things very differently.
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Discarded Crow Brett Turner has urged mid-season draft hopefuls to nominate 18-month contracts after lasting just 136 days on an AFL list.
Adelaide recruited Turner from Glenelg in June but did not renew his six-month deal in mid-October, then overlooked the chance to rookie-list him last week.
The 26-year-old told News Corp he was frustrated at what he felt were “changing goalposts” from chats with the Crows during the season about his future.
Turner, a big-bodied midfielder, said the club initially told him a new contract would be determined by his finals form, before saying it would depend on what happened during the trade period, then changed to be about the drafts.
“I was led down the garden path a bit, I feel,” said Turner, who emptied his locker on Friday.
“I don’t blame (list manager) Justin Reid or (recruiting boss) Hamish Ogilvie, I blame the idea of the system.
“You’re only there for six months and then you get the flick, it’s lucky I didn’t go interstate, it would’ve been so much worse.
“Anyone who asks me about the mid-season draft, do not do it unless you’re nominating 18 months.
“If clubs want you bad enough, they’ll get you at the end of the year.”
Turner booted 4.1 and had 38 disposals against the Crows’ SANFL side in round 3 in April, but Adelaide’s mid-season interest surprised him because he had a foot injury.
He was in a moon boot when he nominated for the draft.
The Crows requested he receive a draft exemption because he was ineligible due to not nominating in years prior.
Joining the club was a dream come true for the lifelong Adelaide fan.
After being picked, he posted a photo on Instagram of himself wearing a club scarf as a child.
“Nicksy (Crows coach Matthew Nicks) told me in my living room on draft night ‘we’re not drafting you just to play SANFL’,” he said.
It took a month for Turner to make his state-league debut for Adelaide after undergoing a mini pre-season to get his fitness back.
Unable to break into the AFL side despite some strong early form, he performed poorly against Norwood in round 16 because he put too much pressure on himself to get promoted.
“I was running around the field thinking ‘why am I here? I’ve played some good games, aren’t they going to put me in?’”
Turner said that with four AFL rounds remaining, Nicks told him he would not play at the top level in 2022, even though the club was out of the finals race.
“It was a bit of a weight off my shoulders, to be fair,” he said.
“But in the back of my mind I was thinking it means I’m getting another contract, otherwise why would they have drafted me?”
Turner said late in the season he asked the club what he needed to do to receive a new deal and was told it was purely based on his SANFL finals form.
“I thought it was good because I could focus on having a good finals series,” he said.
Turner was among Adelaide’s best in all three of its finals.
He averaged 25.6 disposals, 9.3 clearances and 10.7 tackles as the Crows fell one win short of making the premiership decider.
All while battling an AC joint issue that worsened due to a fracture during the second semi-final loss to North Adelaide.
“I wasn’t going to play the preliminary final, but I kept thinking the whole time ‘I’ve got to play for my contract, I’m playing for my career’,” said Turner, who featured in 10 SANFL games for Adelaide and was never an AFL emergency.
“I did everything they asked me to do and couldn’t have done any more.”
Turner was disappointed about his delisting last month but was hopeful when the Crows left the door open for him to remain at the club as a rookie.
Adelaide requested he stay ready over the off-season by continuing to train and perform like an AFL player with no promise of a spot on the list.
The Crows provided him with a full fitness program and he remained in squad group chats.
“I thought I’d finally get an AFL pre-season to show them what I could do,” said Turner, who left his a management role at his family’s solar business, Adelaide Solarsafe, to pursue the mid-year opportunity at the Crows.
When he saw Adelaide traded up the order on Tuesday night to select two midfielders, his heart sank.
“I thought ‘there’s no spot for me’,” he said.
“You go from such a high in June from seeing your name to that in November.
“I spent seven years grinding to get here and it’s happened so quickly.”
His hopes of auditioning for a potential spot that could open were quashed at a meeting with Reid and Ogilvie on Thursday.
Turner said despite his frustration, he understood Adelaide’s list decision, but he had hoped for better communication, rather than feeling strung along.
“I would’ve preferred them to say ‘Brett, we’re focusing on getting some 18-year-olds in, you’re not exactly what we expected you to be’ and I’m cool with that,” he said.
“If they didn’t think I was good enough, tell me.
“It doesn’t sit well with me that they said my contract was based on finals, I did everything they asked then … it was weird.”
Turner said he would love to have known if he was good enough to play at AFL level.
He will continue barracking for the Crows because he has great relationships with teammates and the coaches, as well as his family being supporters.
GUESS WHO'S BACK...#HomeOfTheBays#ForeverGoldpic.twitter.com/zOe0u1yD4M
— Glenelg FC (@GlenelgFC) December 2, 2022
Turner signed with Glenelg on Friday and wanted to repay the Tigers’ loyalty.
“It sucks, but I’d still do it 10 out of 10 times if I had my time over again,” he said of his AFL exit and experience.
“I learnt so much from it.
“But it’s a cruel industry and I found it out very quickly.”
Asked if the club was upfront with Turner, Reid told News Corp: “100 per cent”.
“We were really clear with him the whole way through,” Reid said.
“He and I have had regular and open conversations.
“What does change is there’s a trade period, things change during that, there’s a free agency period, then you have the draft and obviously things change in that.
“We could’ve had just one pick … but we ended up having three because we found a way of getting back in the draft.
“Certainly no goalposts were ever changed from the conversations we had.”
The Crows drafted Turner at pick 4, five spots ahead of West Adelaide’s Josh Carmichael, who played seven games this year for Collingwood.
Carmichael starred for Collingwood against Adelaide, registering 24 disposals and one goal, which led plenty of football observers to question the Crows’ mid-season call.
Reid said Adelaide would not have drafted Turner if it did not view him as capable of playing at AFL level.
“We had two or three players injured at that time (of the draft) and he was well-performed as a SANFL player,” he said.
“We knew him as an 18-year-old and saw his progress over the last few years and wanted to give him that opportunity.”
Reid would not be drawn on whether Turner would have been recontracted if fellow inside midfielder Matt Crouch was traded, calling it a hypothetical.
The list boss denied that Nicks told Turner he was not going to play AFL, saying the mid-year recruit was asked to take pressure off himself.
“(It was) ‘we’ve seen you play good football, just enjoy your football, enjoy your environment, get the best out of yourself and those decisions will be made at the end of the year’,” Reid said.
He also refuted Turner’s claim that his contract was being judged solely on his finals form.
“We just said to him ‘we make a lot of decisions, not just through finals football, we take a body of work, whether that’s finals from last year, whether it’s how he started the SANFL season and how he handled the environment,” he said.
“His finals football was really solid, hence that’s why there was a possibility to find himself back on the list.
“It just didn’t quite work out.
“We wish him all the best.”
Reid said Turner was not the only mid-season draftee to be cut after six months.
“Is that (six months) enough time and is that fair at times for the individuals? Maybe not,” he said.
“But we need to make hard decisions … to try to improve the list.”
‘NO CEILING’: REID OPENS UP ON CROWS’ REBUILD, NEXT TARGETS
Adelaide list manager Justin Reid is not putting a timeline on when the club will return to the finals but says the Crows’ squad is definitely heading in the right direction.
Reid this week completed his eighth player movement period in his role, headlined by the arrival of draftees Max Michalanney, Billy Dowling and Hugh Bond, as well as Izak Rankine joining via a trade last month.
With no finals since 2017, the Crows are in their longest major-round drought and will be hoping to end that next year in Matthew Nicks’ fourth season as senior coach.
Asked how far the club was away from September action, Reid said “every club goes into every year wanting to play finals, there’s no ceiling from our point of view”.
“I won’t put a timeline around it,” Reid said.
“We’re three years into the rebuild.
“Another 22 games next year will give that three to four-year period you need to expose that list and see what comes through.
“After 60 to 80 games, you start to understand where everyone sits.
“It’s certainly not a finished product but is certainly heading in the right direction.”
Reid has helped bring two star South Australians home over the past two off-seasons, Rankine this year and Jordan Dawson 12 months ago.
Melbourne’s Kysaiah Pickett and St Kilda’s Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera are among the SANFL products out of contract at the end of 2023.
Tuesday night: Draft 5ï¸âƒ£0ï¸âƒ£
— Adelaide Crows (@Adelaide_FC) November 30, 2022
Wednesday morning: Nicksy en route to Ballarat 🥰#weflyasonepic.twitter.com/M8VDqGAqIv
Reid would not go into detail on who Adelaide might target next, saying only “you’re always looking for ways to improve your list”.
“We’re always having ongoing conversations on a regular basis,” he said.
“We’ll identify where there may be some gaps but that takes time and games, and seeing where the cohesion of the group goes.”
Adelaide does not have any list spots available after recontracting concussion-affected Paul Seedsman and defender Andrew McPherson as rookies on Wednesday.
Reid was also asked about:
Will Seedsman be placed on the long-term injury list, opening up an extra list spot
“It’s not for me to speculate, the focus with Paul is certainly around his welfare, wellbeing and supporting what he’s going through. We won’t be putting any timelines or statements around that, it’s just focusing on him, the individual.
Will defender Fischer McAsey come back from personal leave?
“We’ve got regular dialogue with Fisch. It’s something we’ll work through in the coming months.
Was the Crows’ 2023 first-round pick ever really on the table?
“You’ve always got it there as part of your kitbag and certainly conversations were had … but nothing really evolved. To bring Izak in, attack the draft and still have those three picks sitting there ready for next year, gives us real flexibility for next year. With list management and recruiting you’ve always got to look 12 months ahead, so it’s good to hold that stock.”
James Rowe getting delisted after playing 36 games in two seasons
“He was certainly very unlucky, he’s a quality young man, Jimmy. It was one of the harder conversations I’ve had over a long time. He deserved his opportunity at the highest level, grabbed it with both hands and didn’t do a lot wrong, but we’ve got a duty of care to the club and supporters to keep improving the list.
Are you confident of re-signing Tom Doedee? Doedee is out of contract after 2023
“From an environment point of view, you’ve seen a lot of guys commit to the club and buying into what Nicksy and the team are putting together. We’ll work through those conversations with Tommy and his management into next year.”
Wines or Jonas: Who will captain Port in 2023?
– Simeon Thomas-Wilson
Port Adelaide star Ollie Wines says Tom Jonas is the man to captain the Power in 2023, but he would love the chance to skipper again.
Jonas and Wines were co-captains in 2019 when the Power broke with tradition and went with the multi-captain approach.
But Jonas has been the Power’s sole captain since 2020, leading the side to two preliminary finals.
When Jonas, who turns 32 in January, does decide to step down from the role Wines is widely seen as the man who will take the mantle.
The 28-year-old said he would be interested in again captaining the Power, but was completely behind Jonas.
“I’d love that opportunity if it comes around but I still have full faith in Tom,” Wines said.
“He is still an outstanding captain for us and he will know when to make that decision, but at the moment I’m really proud still to be vice-captain and run out alongside him and see him do his thing.
“He is still an amazing leader for us and what he has done for our group.”
Wines said that him, Jonas and fellow vice-captain Darcy Byrne-Jones were in constant discussions about what the leadership group would look like.
“We talk a lot, me, him and Darcy. Not just about the positions themselves but bettering ourselves as leaders,” he said.
“So we have lots of chats and we chat about different things.”
Wines will begin pre-season on Monday after the Power’s first to four year players began just under two weeks ago.
He will also resume running on Monday after having arthroscopic surgery on his left knee to clean out some loose bodies.
“Yeah it’s coming along as planned, I haven’t resumed running yet but that starts when I go back to training on Monday,” Wines said.
“I haven’t had any hiccups so it is going as planned and it probably won’t be until January until I’m back in full training.
“But we will have a patient build-up this pre-season for me, it is going OK.”
While he will have a slightly interrupted pre-season, Wines said he was confident of getting back to playing the footy that won him the Brownlow Medal in 2021.
“Yeah certainly I have full belief in my football and what I’m able to do and there were certainly a few things in my body that went against me that I had to manage through,” he said.
“But we start off with a fresh canvas for 2023 and I’ll be looking to play my best footy again and I feel like as a team we can play our best footy again and really do well next year.”
He said the addition of last year’s No. 1 draft pick Jason Horne-Francis from North Melbourne would help the Power do this.
“I’m so excited, I think he is going to be a star and hopefully for him being back in his home state means he is a little bit more settled and we see so much growth in him that you only have to look back to last season at what he did in his limited games and what he did in the SANFL,” he said.
“He is a star and we are going to put everything around him and get him flourishing to play his best footy.”
Wines was speaking ahead of the Adelaide 500 Supercars race, which returns to Victoria Park this year.
Catch every practice, qualifying session and the Adelaide 500 race on Fox Sports, available on Foxtel and Kayo.
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