AFL 2020: Adelaide Crows legend Mark Ricciuto slaps at former players, Jake Lever, Mitch McGovern

Adelaide Crows legend and board member Mark Ricciuto has given a brutally cold assessment of the stars that deserted his football club.

Charlie Cameron is the one that got away.

Adelaide Crows director and club legend Mark Ricciuto has given a blunt assessment of the many stars that have walked out on the club in recent years.

The Crows have had to watch on as a number of high profile stars have moved to rival clubs in recent trades and free agency manoeuvres.

The premiership-winning club icon on Wednesday defended the club’s recent recruitment and retention after being blown off the park by bitter rivals Port Adelaide on Saturday night.

It was only in 2017 that the Crows made the grand final against Richmond.

The club has fallen apart as a flag contender in the years that have followed, further fuelled by the departure of several big-name players.

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Ricciuto, however, continues to stand by his club’s business dealings in recent trade periods, explaining the tough calls to let Charlie Cameron, Hugh Greenwood, Eddie Betts, Alex Keath, Josh Jenkins, Jake Lever and Mitch McGovern go.

In a refreshingly honest assessment of the club’s recent moves, Ricciuto admits his club hasn’t got them all right — but believes the right calls were made at the time.

He is particularly content with the decision to allow key defender Lever t go to the Demons in a high-stakes trade and the decision to allow McGovern to link-up with Carlton.

He says the Crows’ salary cap value assessment of the two star players was significantly less than what they were offered to move to Melbourne.

Former Crows captain Mark Ricciuto.

He says both McGovern and Lever have failed to match the rich contracts dangled in front of them before their decisions to leave Adelaide.

“Jake Lever got a five-year deal on $800,000 to $850,000 (per season), very comfortable that we let him go on that money,” Ricciuto told his Roo & Ditts Show on Triple M radio.

“He’s probably a $500,000 player.”

He then suggested McGovern has also failed to prove the Crows wrong with their assessment that he was not worth the rumoured $800,0000 per-season deal Carlton offered.

“Comfortable that he goes,” Ricciuto said.

“We love people that contest in the forward line and have got plenty of speed, and we need speed in the forward line, but once again 800-and-something thousand.

“Has he delivered for Carlton yet? No.”

Ricciuto admitted the Crows are still paying part of power forward Jenkins’ deal with Geelong.

“Very happy for him to go,” he said.

Jake Lever is only now getting a chance to show Melbourne what he can do.

“Once again, age in our forward line. We needed to get some youth into our forward line.

“Very comfortable, we’re even paying part of his contract. Same with Eddie Betts.”

Alex Keath and Charlie Cameron, however, are two players the club was sad to see go.

Cameron has continued to develop into one of the most dangerous small forwards in the game since leaving the Crows. Ricciuto admits the club was unable to compete with the offer made by the Brisbane Lions while dealing with a bulging salary cap resulting from their 2017 grand final appearance.

“Charlie Cameron was one of few we didn’t want to lose,” he said.

“He got a very, very good contract from Brisbane who were down the bottom of the ladder and had plenty of money in their salary cap.

“We couldn’t match that, absolutely not. This was 2017. When you’re at the top of the ladder and your salary cap is chock-a-block you haven’t got much room to move.

Charlie Cameron is must-watch TV.

“We didn’t want to lose him, but we lost him.”

The club’s most famous lost son, Patrick Dangerfield, remains a sore point for Adelaide supporters, but nor for the club.

Ricciuto says the club was powerless to stop Dangerfield moving back home to Geelong — insisting the club was never even given an opportunity to put an offer to the champion midfielder when it came for him to leave the Crows at the end of the 2015 season.

“Dangerfield was never going to stay. We would have paid whatever we could to keep Patrick Dangerfield. But he’s absolutely loyal to and loves Moggs Creek,” he said.

“No, it never even got to money.”

The Crows have picked up some impressive top-end draft picks in recent years, but all those departures have left the club facing at least one more season outside the top eight.