AFL 2022: All the Adelaide Crows off-season trade, contract and free agency news

Gold Coast Suns chairman Tony Cochrane has blasted Izak Rankine on Melbourne radio for requesting a trade to the Crows. READ HIS EXPLOSIVE COMMENTS HERE.

Gold Coast chairman Tony Cochrane believes departing Sun Izak Rankine owed the team to stay, lamenting the time the club had poured into the wantaway star.

Rankine, pick No. 3 in the 2018 draft, requested a trade this week and is set to join Adelaide on a lucrative five-year deal.

Cochrane vented his displeasure at the move, saying Gold Coast coach Stuart Dew had been a father-figure to Rankine.

Asked on 3AW if he thought Rankine owed the club to stay he said: “Yeah, I do.”

“I think when you put the investment in with a young lad who’s 18, turns up, he’s unfortunately unfit to play in the first year, you give him a whole year to try and help get him right, you put a lot of work into turning him into an AFL footballer ... It’s disappointing when that happens, but it’s sport all over the world now,” Cochrane said.

“Somebody else with a bigger wallet comes along and makes it pretty hard.”

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Tony Cochrane has accused Izak Rankine of owing the Suns to stay on the Gold Coast.

The Suns had hoped to change Rankine’s mind with a last-ditch attempt to keep him on the Gold Coast as they hosted his father at the club’s round 22 game against Geelong.

“Incredibly disappointing because there’s so many people around our club that gave Izak an awful lot of time,” Cochrane said on 3AW.

“I recall his first year, when they discovered he had a bit of an arthritic hip issue, pelvic area issue, and the time and trouble we went to medically to try and get to the bottom of that and get him sorted for life - not just for footy with that problem- and he didn’t play in that first year. It goes right back to those days.

“Stuey Dew has put in phenomenal amount of time with this kid, I mean Stuey’s been like a second dad to him. He’s helped him in so many ways, to get around and get involved, and he’s also helped him enormously with his football.

“There’s a lot of very disappointed people up here and I know a lot of his fellow playing mates all feel that they were all in this together, and they felt he was in this with them and would go forward with them.

“Money talks, huh?”

Cochrane said his own role as chairman at the Suns could come to an end in the coming months.

Ex-Crow’s regret: Camp broke playing group

Former Adelaide champion Richard Douglas has broken his silence on the Crows’ infamous 2018 pre-season camp, saying he “personally” regrets not supporting Eddie Betts “in greater depth” after he shared his pain about what happened.

Douglas also said he regrets “saying some certain things that I said to some teammates that I would normally not say in the light of day”.

After years of silence ex-Crows forwards Eddie Betts and Josh Jenkins blew the lid on what happened on the Gold Coast camp run by Collective Mind in 2018.

Betts in his book, The Boy from Boomerang Crescent, revealed harrowing revelations about the impact the camp had on him.

Betts revealed that an instructor told him he would be “a s**t father as I was only raised by a mother” and that “wasn’t the worst of it” as he was put “into a situation that was psychologically and culturally unsafe”.

The two forwards, along with Douglas, were in a group that underwent the most intense part of the program by Collective Mind.

After Betts released his book, Jenkins revealed on radio that he was asked to share his story pre camp with a “counsellor” and how it was then used against him at the camp against his will.”

Richard Douglas regrets not providing more support for Eddie Betts in the wake of the Crows camp. Picture: AAP

On Sportsday SA on Tuesday evening, Douglas broke his silence, saying the camp broke the group up.

The 2010 Club Champion said he was also asked to divulge personal information ahead of the camp.

“We thought it was in confidence and it wouldn’t be dug up and rehashed under physical fatigue,” he said.

“Mine was more footy related … so it was all water off a duck’s back (for him) but I certainly understand why Eddie and Josh and those guys who were deeply affected by really traumatic things from their childhood, which I could never understand, being shared in that situation would hurt them.

“I do regret saying some certain things that I said to some teammates that I would normally not say in the light of day.

“You get caught up in the emotion of things, you are in the moment and everyone is buying into it.

“We all bought into it because that’s what you do at a footy club.”

Richard Douglas at home with his Kelpies Chisel and Pippa. Picture: Sarah Reed

Douglas said initially he felt that the players were very connected by some of the exercises, and the initial thoughts of the camp were positive.

But he said the more time players had to think about what had happened, anger and angst about what happened emerged.

“From that moment we went on a four-day break, we went away on a bit of a holiday and I think people reflected on what had happened and when we got back to the club guys sort of probably regretted saying some things as I did and things felt a bit awkward and weird,” he said.

“Some guys started to feel a bit hurt and let down.”

One of them was Betts and Douglas said while he was unaware of just how hurt his former teammate was at the time, the players should have done more for him.

“I think he shared that he was hurt but not to that extent,” he said.

“And it’s hard because when you are talking about his history, we didn’t completely know the depths of that and the cultural things that were offensive.

“We didn’t understand regrettably. But we should have had those conversations to understand and really support him in greater depth.

“So that is a regret of mine personally.”

Richard Douglas says he regrets some of the things he said on the Crows camp. Picture: AAP

Douglas said players were told to rehearse answers when asked by their wives and partners about the camp and that it “caused us a lot of turmoil” especially in 2018.

“There were a lot of leadership group meetings about the camp,” he said.

“It broke the group up.

“The way it was handled internally, it was big news externally … but the way we handled it as a whole we all know it was poor.

“As a group of young men it was poor, we didn’t support our teammates enough and it did divide the group.

“As a whole we got it wrong.”

The camp has been investigated and cleared by the AFL’s Integrity Unit and by SafeWork SA.

After Betts’ revelations AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan has apologised to him, while the AFLPA wants to reinterview current and past Crows players.

Adelaide chairman John Olsen and chief executive Tim Silvers have apologised to Betts and Jenkins in an open letter to Crows fans.

Is this the Crows’ next captain?

—Simeon Thomas-Wilson

Adelaide leadership group member Tom Doedee says there has been no conversation about Rory Sloane relinquishing the captaincy for the 2023 season as he recovers from an ACL injury.

Sloane, 32, tore his ACL against Richmond in Round 5, continuing his horror run with injuries of late.

He is hopeful of returning to 100 per cent fitness to make a comeback to action next year, which will be the last season of his big five-year deal, signed in 2018.

After Sloane’s season-ending injury, the Crows made the decision to share their match-day captaincy duties between the leadership group of Doedee, Brodie Smith, Ben Keays and Reilly O’Brien.

Adelaide's five man leadership group for 2022, Ben Keays, Tom Doedee, Reilly O'Brien, captain Rory Sloane and Brodie Smith. Picture: AFC

Jordan Dawson was added to the Crows leadership group this year after making a strong impression since moving back to South Australia from Sydney.

While Dawson looms as a smoky to captain the club, Doedee is still considered to be the man to assume the position at West Lakes.

He said there had been no conversations about this happening next year, if Sloane wants to instead focus on his fitness.

“No that hasn’t been brought up, it doesn’t need to be to be honest,” he said.

“He (Sloane) is just chipping away as his rehab, he has been as good as a leader.

“We know what he brings on the field but his coaching stuff has been amazing.

“It hasn’t been brought up because it doesn’t need to be.”

Doedee was added to the Crows leadership group in 2020 after just 21 games because of the impact he made at West Lakes.

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Sloane after rupturing his ACL. (Photo by Sarah Reed/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Now 25, and having captained the Crows on multiple occasions after Sloane’s shocking run with injury, Doedee said it wasn’t something he was thinking about.

“It is something as a leadership group that we haven’t spoken about,” he said.

“So it is something I can’t really be ready for, it’s not a conscious thing, it’s not at the front of our minds and we are not talking about it.

“He just needs to get his knee right and then he can come back and lead the club the way he does.”

Doedee revealed that the Crows group had spoken about ensuring they kept fitness levels up in the upcoming off-season as players prepared to head overseas for the first time since the pandemic began in 2020.

“Yeah it is going to be a lot different, we had an actual meeting about going international and how you book out a gym or book a hotel that has a gym and an area to run before you go,” he said.

“Because in the last two years we’ve either had the whole team here in Adelaide or in Victoria and if you are in Australia there is always a footy oval or a gym around.

“But going international that changes it a bit and with a young group you want to make sure you get that work in.”

Originally published as AFL 2022: All the Adelaide Crows off-season trade, contract and free agency news