Have we ever seen an exodus like what is taking place at Adelaide right now?

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Shadow89

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Discounting GWS and Gold Coast, which have become 'feeder clubs' in a sense, has there ever been this much fallout in the space of such a short time frame for a club?

I want to preface this by saying, this is in no way a slight against the fans or the Adelaide players, but against the management that has been heavily criticized in recent times.

While losing Dangerfield and Tippett stung in past years, trading by Adelaide was very much in their favour given the talent they brought in. In no particular order, players like Seedsman, Jacobs, Jenkins, Lynch and Betts, were all 'wins' for the club. These players were brought in for a decent price and were part of the push towards a GF in 2017 (a year Adelaide finished minor premiers and favourites for the cup).

It is since the fated 'pre-season camp' that everything has gone to hell. With rumours abound, Adelaide has fallen from one of the dominant teams of the comp, to back amongst the pack. With the list they have, and the talent acquired, they were expected to push back into Top 4 calculations this year, or at the very least, finals. Alas, this did not happen and the fallout this trade period is going to be even greater than years gone by. Now while there are some players that aren't required - Jacobs, Betts, Jenkins - players like Keath, Greenwood, Ellis-Yolmen, Brad Crouch, are still in their prime and worthy of staying on. Why is it then, that all these players are either:

a) requesting trades away due to Adelaide not meeting contractual demands?

or

b) being delisted due to not being part of the clubs's plans moving forward?

Speaking to a fair few Adelaide supporters and seeing the sentiment on their board, the fault seems to lie with senior management - in particular Ricciuto, Camporeale and Rob Chapman. Pyke is already gone, and Walker has stepped down as captain. 3 Indigenous players will be leaving/have left - Betts, Ellis-Yolmen and Cameron - and the fallout from this camp still continues to show itself.

To further demonstrate this, here is the Adelaide 22 from the 2017 Grand Final -

Laird, Hartigan, Lever
Seedsman, Talia, Brown
Mackay, Sloane, Atkins
Jacobs, B. Crouch, M. Crouch
Cameron, Jenkins, Betts
Lynch, Walker, Douglas
Knight, Kelly, Greenwood, Otten


Now here is the Adelaide 22, without the players being rumoured as leaving/already left/retired:

Hartigan,
Seedsman, Talia, Brown
Mackay, Sloane, Atkins
M. Crouch

Lynch, Walker,
Knight, Kelly,



Including McGovern in there as an emergency who failed to get up in time (who has also left), Ellis-Yolmen as a very decent fringe player and Keath as Best 22, is this list mismanagement, fall out from the camp, arrogance from their board and coaches in not offering players good enough contracts, or a combination of all of the above? This is probably the biggest list change I can ever recall, in recent years. Such is the differential between sides from 2017 to now. This is while still bizarrely offering players like Mackay, Knight and Hartigan to an extent, further contracts (Mackay just got offered his a few hours ago, which is just baffling to me).

This is the total sum of players lost since 2017 (including the proposed players this year). Bolded are the players I think will go/are gone, and underlined are the rumours:

Greenwood
B. Crouch
Laird

Jacobs
Betts
Jenkins
Keath
C. Cameron
M. McGovern
Ellis-Yolmen
Jacobs
Jenkins
Lever


I don't give much credence to the Smith and M. Crouch rumours, but the jungle fires are pretty strong on B. Crouch and Laird. I still think Laird will stay, but the fact his name is even being floated, is crazy to me.

What do people think? Is this smart management? Is this an acknowledgement of past mistakes, or more of the same? By re-signing Mackay and pushing out Greenwood and Keath, it certainly seems like there's some odd decisions still being made. Losing 12 best 22 players, alongside Otten and Douglas retiring, is very interesting to me. This is 2 seasons after recruiting Gibbs as the 'missing ingredient' for a Premiership.

Has there ever been a list fallout like this, from a contender just 3 seasons ago?

Discuss.
 

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Sauras

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Maybe a coach would help, surely there's someone in the local leagues who's willing to sacrifice his coaching career for 2 years at the highest level. Heard Leigh Tudor's still open, happy to do it for minimum wage...
 
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so we're too old, but once we're getting rid of older blokes we're getting rid of the wrong ones?

jacobs is finished, no sense offering him a deal
douglas might believe he can play at another club, i think he'll be disappointed.
betts' best years are behind him, and he has a link back to a previous club
greenwood struggles and we're not offering a 28 year old mid 3 years when we have an abundance of inside mids
cey has 40 games in 8 years. we're not offering the 3+1 brisbane is. plus again on the inside mids point
keath sucks a bit, i would've offered him what he wanted, but doedee comes back in, so it is covered. but again he's an older bloke who hasnt played much getting security.

we've turned 2 cat b rookies into future picks or whatever for our next push, and cey who was on a rookie contract into at least 3rd round compo. everyone says jenkins sucks so i dont know why he now suddenly matters.

guys like mackay and knight get new deals because you still need some depth and they dont have the confidence/offers that those above do.
 

Shadow89

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so we're too old, but once we're getting rid of older blokes we're getting rid of the wrong ones?

jacobs is finished, no sense offering him a deal
douglas might believe he can play at another club, i think he'll be disappointed.
betts' best years are behind him, and he has a link back to a previous club
greenwood struggles and we're not offering a 28 year old mid 3 years when we have an abundance of inside mids
cey has 40 games in 8 years. we're not offering the 3+1 brisbane is. plus again on the inside mids point
keath sucks a bit, i would've offered him what he wanted, but doedee comes back in, so it is covered. but again he's an older bloke who hasnt played much getting security.

we've turned 2 cat b rookies into future picks or whatever for our next push, and cey who was on a rookie contract into at least 3rd round compo. everyone says jenkins sucks so i dont know why he now suddenly matters.

guys like mackay and knight get new deals because you still need some depth and they dont have the confidence/offers that those above do.

It's not just the old blokes, but also those requesting trades this year/previous years. It's more a question of list management, and the collective issues that led to circumstances you guys now find yourselves in.

You're right that Jacobs, Betts, Jenkins and Douglas are all done. But then you add in McGovern, Cameron, Lever, Keath, Greenwood, CEY and possibly B. Crouch, and it starts to look a lot different.

That's why I was asking if we've ever seen anything like this in the AFL before, because there's so many factors that seem to have contributed to such a mass exodus in such a short time-frame.
 

NoobPie

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Discounting GWS and Gold Coast, which have become 'feeder clubs' in a sense, has there ever been this much fallout in the space of such a short time frame for a club?

The Giants just played off in a GF


More generally, I can't think of a larger prospective exodus in modern times
 

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PAFC_1870

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1. I see the word discuss I immediately stop caring.

2. Adelaide is just pissing off players they don't need, no difference to Port 2 years ago. If the draft coincided with quality SA talent like last year, I reckon they'd cut deeper like Port did with Polec and Wingard. But alas, just dead wood.
 

CholEstrol

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Has there ever been a list fallout like this, from a contender just 3 seasons ago?

Discuss.
Would need to wait for the cards to fall then do a comparison on previous contenders.
But it does look like one of the worse cases of player revolt. We went through something like this in Plough's days from memory.
 

MadMundy

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Honestly wouldn't surprise me to see Adelaide near the bottom of the ladder next year. Too many players leaving for them to make a serious challenge in my opinion.
 
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Old or fringe players.
In isolation each and every one is easily disposable (other than maybe the crouches)
But I don’t want us to cut the depth this badly. Just keep one of cey and greenwood. Just 1.
 

Kreuuuzeurns

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Could probably use an extra talented kid in Stocker/RCD/Smith instead of the negligible difference between pick 5 and 10.

Need to cut deep like Port have done but probably not the draft to do it. Next year doesn’t look much better.

It’s tough to turn over 8-12 players with minimal currency coming in. Perhaps Brouch and Laird are the big ones that have to give to kickstart it all.
 

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