I was chatting to a friend of mine that supports a non-SA club, and we were chatting about The Crows' list management. He said that The Crows don't have a list that's too bad, but our selectors during Draft Week seriously have a lot to answer for, as well as our Trade Staff.
Like it or not, the vast majority of young blokes (particularly those outside of SA) don't want to live in Adelaide, so The Crows are up against it, whether we like it or not. We don't have anywhere near the population and social settings compared to Eastern States. In particular, our off-field business opportunities don't come close to comparing.
If you don't agree with these points, then there's no point reading any further, cos you'll just be wasting your time.
What my mate told me is that in The Draft, The Crows need to focus wholly and solely on local SA talent, where all their friends and family live in Adelaide. Dangermouse is a great get, but what's the point in getting talent like that if they're going to walk? Just take a look at Gunston - that's the one that really sticks in my Craw. I'm all for Damien Hardwick's comments that clubs should be allowed to trade players against their will, because at the moment what we're getting is a version of semi-Free-Agency from the moment young players get Drafted. Until that changes, we need to focus entirely on local talent - even if that means not picking the best players....but only in THE DRAFT. Where we need to get our absolute top guns is at the Trade Table - an area that The Crows have been utterly useless, with a few rare exceptions. When we do Trade someone in, we know they've agreed to the Trade, so they're almost guaranteed to stay - this is where need to push hard. Betts is a perfect example of this, but there needs to be many, many more.
Just look at how successful Sydney have been over the duration (forget TidBit) - they Trade players in and they improve out of site. The Crows need to take a leaf out of their book, and really go for broke.
The bottom line is the AFL is anything but a level playing field, so we need to approach things differently to East Coast Clubs.