Adelaide Crows forward Josh Jenkins expecting a massive jump in player movement
Adelaide Crows key forward Josh Jenkins says AFL player movement will only intensify as the AFL follows the path of the American sport.
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Adelaide Crows key forward Josh Jenkins says AFL player movement will only intensify as the AFL follows the path of the American sport.
Reports this week that Crows coach Don Pyke had lost a portion of the Adelaide playing group sent the rumour mill into overdrive and Jenkins said he expected player movement to rise rapidly in the coming years.
“The more this league evolves, I expect a massive jump in player movement, that’s just the business we’re in and the model we’re following,’’ Jenkins said on SEN radio.
Crows stars Hugh Greenwood, Alex Keath and Brad Crouch are some of the big names to have attracted strong interest from interstate clubs.
Keath is reportedly being chased by the Western Bulldogs, St Kilda is strongly interested in Crouch — who becomes a restricted free agent at the end of next season — while Hawthorn and the Gold Coast have expressed interest in Greenwood according to AFL.com.
“We obviously had the chat a couple of weeks ago and prior to even today we agreed to park it until the end of the year anyway, so I don’t think selection changes anything moving forward,” Greenwood told The Advertiser’s The Lowdown podcast this week.
Out of favour ruckman Sam Jacobs has also been linked to Geelong while first round draft pick Darcy Fogarty and Bryce Gibbs have been rumoured to be seeking trades at season’s end.
“It will depend a lot on what happens in the next four plus weeks,’’ Jenkins said.
“If we miss the eight I guess that will certainly change the thought process of the powers to be, if we go deep into September perhaps it’s a different story.
“I always speak as openly and honestly as I can of myself but it’s unfair for me to speak of those guys mentioned.
“What I will say, I’d hope everyone’s focus is on St Kilda on Saturday night and what lies ahead for the rest of the season on the field.
“There is a time for playing football and that’s football season and time to worry about your future and that more so probably after football season, that’s what you employ managers for.’’
Jenkins said it wasn’t fair to point the blame of Adelaide’s form slump solely at Pyke and said
said everyone at the Crows need to take responsibility as they cling on to eighth spot on the ladder ahead of this weekend’s clash with St Kilda.
“I think we’re all on the nose,’’ Jenkins added.
“We’ve all got some things we need to do better and we need to tidy it up quite quickly.
“We understand that we’re in it together, one individual can’t be blamed for everything, it’s a bit unfair to throw it at the feet of the coach,’’ he said.
Jenkins missed the pizza party at Pyke’s on Sunday due to family commitments and said it was easy from the outside to consider the gathering as a crisis meeting.
“I think it was mostly pretty positive, those kind of days and events can’t hurt,’’ Jenkins added.
“When you couple everything together you can make those sort of assumptions.
“We get paid to worry about the things happening on the field and not so much what happens off the field,’’ he said.
And he said last week’s axing of Eddie Betts sent another strong message to the entire Adelaide playing group.
“I was upset for him,’’ Jenkins said.
“We’ve basically played over 120-130 games together.
“But I’d been through a similar situation, the difference for Eddie is he’s our most popular player since Tony Modra so it certainly would have sent some shockwaves through the team.
“Whether it can be responsible for the poor performance on the weekend, I’m not sure,’’ he said.
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