Crows woes as Eddie Betts heads home to Carlton

After 132 games with the Adelaide, Eddie Betts wants to end his career where it all began.

Full circle: Eddie Betts is leaving the Crows, left, to head back to where it all began in 2005 with Carlton, right. Pictures: Getty/News Corp

AFL star Eddie Betts is officially saying goodbye to the Adelaide Crows to return to Carlton, the Victorian club where his stellar career as a small forward began in 2005, on a one-year deal worth more than $400,000.

As revealed exclusively by The Australian in August, the 600-goal AFL legend — who joined the Crows in 2014 and played 132 games for the Adelaide club including its heartbreaking 2017 Grand Final defeat to underdogs Richmond — has now confirmed that he wants to end his career where it all began.

Betts, 32, is a three-time all-Australian and was awarded an unprecedented fourth goal of the year this season, with a typically physics-defying shot on an improbable angle right on the boundary line.

While his best years may be behind him, Carlton believe that he still has good footy left in him, and that whatever form issues he may face will be offset by his huge appeal as a membership and marketing drawcard, plus his mentoring and leadership skills as an indigenous great of the game.

Betts’ departure has been fuelled by several factors, the biggest of which is family, with his wife Anna Scullie hailing from Victoria, and the pair having four young children with limited support in Adelaide.

He is also great mates with Carlton senior coach David Teague, who was his forward coach at the Crows before joining the Blues, and who said in August when asked about a possible Betts defection said simply: “I love Eddie Betts.”

Betts had been angling for a two-year deal at Carlton but The Australian understands that the club’s harder heads including Stephen Silvagni had reservations about his longevity.

Betts has also alluded to his recent unhappiness at the Adelaide Football Club, which has not yet recovered from its 2017 grand final loss, missing the finals the past two seasons.

The club is currently without a coach after the voluntary departure of Don Pyke and is also in the midst of a protracted external review into every aspect of its operations headed by Hawthorn great Jason Dunstall, which is expected report within days.

That review will look at the club’s culture including one of the most contentious aspects of its recent history — the 2018 post-grand final camp where players including Eddie Betts became distressed and angered by some of the psychological games used by the facilitators to challenge and motivate the players.

Another indigenous Crows player, Cam Ellis-Yolmen, walked out on the club this week for the Brisbane Lions and spoke candidly about how the Collective Minds camp created divisions within the team.

“I wasn’t a fan of how it was run,” Ellis-Yolmen told SEN on Tuesday.

“It just didn’t help, it didn’t do what it was supposed to do.

“A lot of people weren’t happy with it and it probably did play a bit of a part in what’s happened in the last couple of years.”

Betts is expected to give a radio interview tomorrow morning where he will farewell the city and thank the fans who loved him so much that the north-eastern Hill end of the Adelaide Oval is known by South Australians as “Eddie Betts pocket”.

Meanwhile, four-time AFL premiership player Grant Birchall will play for Brisbane next season after agreeing to join the club as an unrestricted free agent.

The 31-year-old had been offered a rookie contract by Hawthorn but will instead head north to reunite with Lions coach Chris Fagan on a one-year deal.

Several other big-names players remained in limbo, among them Essendon star Joe Daniher who is no closer to securing a move to Sydney.