Why can't Adelaide retain players?

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HolyRioli

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I know Victorians will go nuts at this suggestion but I think every club, no matter what club it is, should get an extra 10% for individual players if they are drafted from another state.

So for Adelaide, every non-South Australian on their list gets an extra 10% on their contract.

Should Victorian clubs be given an additional 10% for interstate players as well?
 

Crows4Eva

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Oh good, who'd have guessed this would immediately degrade into a Crows-Port s**t fight with a handful of Vics pulling out the Adelaide's a s**t hole argument.

1. We recruit too heavily out of Victoria, particularly Vic Metro. We've had significantly less luck retaining guys from there compared to Vic Country. Adelaide can be a pretty dull place compared to Melbourne and the Melbourne city kids don't like Adelaide's more subdued lifestyle.

2. We have too many young players who have become good enough to demand a high price, we simply can't afford to pay everyone the money they want and as much as it pains me to say it, my generation lacks the team spirit that previous ones had. There's a lot of selfishness and greed.

3. Adelaide have a reputation for having a rigid pay structure and won't pay someone too much more than what the club believes them to be worth, rarely do Adelaide pay big money based on potential, many believe this is a big factor in younger players walking away.

4. Adelaide can be a real media fishbowl, it gets pretty tiring I'd imagine having the media all over your every move. I can see how it'd appeal to some to escape to Melbourne where there are 10 clubs thus the media attention is much more divided compared to a 2 club town.
 
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WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot

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Seems like some people struggle to understand how important family is. To SOME players family is more important than money, and I don't blame them. There have been plenty of instances in the real world - not just the AFL where people have turned down jobs where they would have gotten paid more but had to move interstate or overseas. If Lever gets the chance to go back home AND get paid.. then why not?

If family was the real issue then Lever wouldn't have told the Crows that he would stay if they matched the offer on the table.
 

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If family was the real issue then Lever wouldn't have told the Crows that he would stay if they matched the offer on the table.

Fair enough, I didn't know that. I don't think it is Adelaide's fault anyway.. I think they've just been unlucky.
 

WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot

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Fair enough, I didn't know that. I don't think it is Adelaide's fault anyway.. I think they've just been unlucky.

Lever tried to use the "family" reason as an excuse.

Unfortunately for Lever, Brett Burton, the Crows football boss, came out publicly today and said that Lever wanted the Crows to make him their highest paid player. So that basically killed off that excuse.
 
Seems like some people struggle to understand how important family is. To SOME players family is more important than money, and I don't blame them. There have been plenty of instances in the real world - not just the AFL where people have turned down jobs where they would have gotten paid more but had to move interstate or overseas. If Lever gets the chance to go back home AND get paid.. then why not?
This is NOT about family. This is all about $$$$. He would have stayed in Adelaide if we were prepared to make him the highest paid player on the list. Higher than Sloane, Tex, Matt Crouch, Brad Crouch, Tom Lynch, Eddie Betts, Sam Jacobs, Daniel Talia - ALL of whom are far, far better players than he is at this time. Whilst you can't blame a kid for wanting to chase the $$$ it certainly pisses me off when a player who we took a chance on (when 13 other clubs wouldn't) and we've developed for 3 years, can just walk out of the Club and demand to go to a specific club. He doesn't qualify for free agency, yet it is clear he has all the power of being one. This is a kid, who when drafted by us talked about being a one club player, a future leader and repaying Adelaide for their faith in him. The system is clearly broken when the players have all the power.
 

Moshie The Mook

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Legit think Adelaide has done nothing wrong just been unlucky. Aussies are seriously sooky bums when it comes to living away from home, your still in Oz most cities are (relatively) similar to each other. Soccer players go live in countries not knowing a word of the language and manage to stay (yes they earn more but AFL players aren't exactly living in the streets).

If I was Adelaide, just like WCE, Freo and Port, start recruiting hometown boys. Burton, Graham comes to mind..
This.

Adelaide has fine restaurants, decent bars, lovely scenery if you're into fishing outdoors etc.

With the money most AFL players make, you can live in a lovely suburb and enjoy an excellent lifestyle. You can jump on a plane and be in Melbourne within an hour to see mum and dad.

I have always struggled to understand the 'come home' factor in the AFL. If you can't make a decent fist of it living in a modern first world city like Adelaide, then you're probably not fair dinkum about a lot of things.
 
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I hate how he and Gunston have acted like free agents after three and two years at the club


Get ******

I hope Crows play Melbourne in Melbourne cos I will have a water balloon with urine with Jake's name on it

Unforuntately it is happening more and more these days. If a player does not want to be in a particular state they are just leaving after 2 years.
 
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Unforuntately it is happening more and more these days. If a player does not want to be in a particular state they are just leaving after 2 years.

I just wish we could trade players at whim the way they do in MLB. The fact we can't start a bidding war for Lever and are forced to deal with the club he nominates totally undermines the Free Agency system. It's a total rort and AFL won't do s**t about it because it gives an advantage to Victorian teams.

I love the Port supporters trolling us thinking they are immune to this s**t. When they actually develop some talent other clubs want, we will see what their "culture" worth.
 

99cents

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I know Victorians will go nuts at this suggestion but I think every club, no matter what club it is, should get an extra 10% for individual players if they are drafted from another state.

So for Adelaide, every non-South Australian on their list gets an extra 10% on their contract.
My christ sir the big footers would self immolate
 
I know Victorians will go nuts at this suggestion but I think every club, no matter what club it is, should get an extra 10% for individual players if they are drafted from another state.

So for Adelaide, every non-South Australian on their list gets an extra 10% on their contract.

Why? Aside from Adelaide and Brisbane, no other clubs are having significant player departures even when they had the money to pay them. It comes back the other way too, Brisbane got Beams and Adelaide could've had (and still might have) Gibbs. On the flipside of that though, as we saw with North's efforts this year, sometimes money makes absolutely no difference.

Apart from a couple of concentrated examples, moves due to 'homesickness' aren't a widespread issue anyway. Plus I'd say most who play the card just use it as a convenient excuse because they're after more money, but can't say that.

Extra money won't stop genuine homesickness, it'd just create more mess. Longer rookie contracts would be a better solution, but good luck with that.

Apart from GWS - which is a special case given how many players it has had (bigger lists etc) I can't think of a team that has had as many "required" players leave as Adelaide. Like I said, it is pretty much a yearly occurrence.

Brisbane did for quite awhile there, but their culture was garbage.

Port supporters tend to throw out a lot of hyperbole.

Firstly I believe that Adelaide recruit far too heavily out of Victoria (we have significantly more Vic players on our list in comparison to WCE, Freo and Port)

I also think the Crows make the mistake of chasing Vic metro players while Port have been smarter with their Vic selections .If you look at Port's history they seem to focus more on recruiting from the Murraylands/Bendigo area where I guess the Melbourne pull isn't quite as strong as selecting players from the Vic metro area.

If you look back at two of Port's more recent Vic metro selections (Ben Jacobs and Trengove) Jacobs has already gone back to Victoria and Trengove also looks set to leave as well.

This is a large factor too, drafting from Vic Country seems to be the smarter choice for non-Vic clubs, only Sydney seem to have had success with Vic Metro retention (possibly due to targeting private school boys).

Legit think Adelaide has done nothing wrong just been unlucky. Aussies are seriously sooky bums when it comes to living away from home, your still in Oz most cities are (relatively) similar to each other. Soccer players go live in countries not knowing a word of the language and manage to stay (yes they earn more but AFL players aren't exactly living in the streets).

If I was Adelaide, just like WCE, Freo and Port, start recruiting hometown boys. Burton, Graham comes to mind..

You can't have such tunnel vision in recruiting though. Focus on character (when drafting) and culture and these things generally become less of a problem.

Tippett was probably the only 1 who genuinely hated Adelaide. Davis was offered a deal to go to GWS no-one could match, money and leadership opportunities etc. He was identified as a future captain early in his career at Adelaide.

Gunston wasn't happy playing for Centrals in the SANFL either. Crows have their own team in SANFL now.

Gunston was effectively locked though until Hawthorn started sniffing around.

This is NOT about family. This is all about $$$$. He would have stayed in Adelaide if we were prepared to make him the highest paid player on the list. Higher than Sloane, Tex, Matt Crouch, Brad Crouch, Tom Lynch, Eddie Betts, Sam Jacobs, Daniel Talia - ALL of whom are far, far better players than he is at this time. Whilst you can't blame a kid for wanting to chase the $$$ it certainly pisses me off when a player who we took a chance on (when 13 other clubs wouldn't) and we've developed for 3 years, can just walk out of the Club and demand to go to a specific club. He doesn't qualify for free agency, yet it is clear he has all the power of being one. This is a kid, who when drafted by us talked about being a one club player, a future leader and repaying Adelaide for their faith in him. The system is clearly broken when the players have all the power.

If it shits you so much, you can always play hard ball and threaten him with the draft again.

Brisbane and GC stand in the way of him getting to Victoria, North and their gigantic salary cap hole between him and his desired destination.
 
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