AFL new world order

Sporting News Logo

Adelaide coach Neil Craig expressed his obvious disappointment in losing All Australian Nathan Bock to the Gold Coast Suns next year after he agreed to a lucrative deal with the new club, but said situations like this will soon be commonplace in the AFL as the competition adopts a transfer-style market place.

Craig said the AFL are creating a new 'culture' which every club will have to 'operate' in and with the birth of free agency, it appears as in the case with Bock, the more money clubs are able to throw at players, the more likely they are to follow.

"Welcome to the new world of AFL Footy," he said.

"Do I like it? No. But anyway, that's the culture the AFL are about to create so we need to operate within that culture. The AFL need to take responsibility for that and I'm sure they will."

"I-m sure this will be national news because Nathan is the first one to declare this hand and great credit to him for doing that, but in 10 years time there probably won-t even be a press conference when a player decides to change clubs."

Craig did praise Bock's honesty in coming forward with the decision before admitting he thought Adelaide's 'culture' was enough to retain the 27 year-old ahead of the dollars thrown at him by Gold Coast.

"Nathan has the right to negotiate, absolutely he does," he said.

"I guess I was backing in our culture and the playing group for him to stay here. You asked the question, what the Gold Coast would offer, I thought what we were able offer would be great enough."

"I would recognise though Nathan's honesty. I also said a week or two ago that I would want to know (if a player was leaving). And, to Nathan's credit and I think to our culture's credit, there's an understanding that if he had made a decision to come out and lets us know as a playing group, he was not going to be crucified by us."

Adelaide CEO, Steven Trigg, stated the Crows did everything possible to keep Bock at the club but admitted Adelaide were unable to compete with the mega-deal offered by the Suns.

"I want all of our supporters and members to understand this is a very unique situation," he said.

"We've stretched the rubber band as far and as hard as it would go in terms of the financial arrangement to keep Nathan Bock at our footy club."

"Sometimes you're not on the same page in terms of negotiations, in this case we are not even in the same library so there's not even a point of discussion."

Trigg conceded it is highly likely the Crows will not be adequately compensated for the loss of Bock, for which he would have expected a top draft pick.

"You'd prefer to keep a player of this calibre though wouldn't you," he said."And our return I would expect with Nathan being the calibre of player that he is we get an end-of-first-round pick."

"But the way it's looking over the next two years it could be anywhere between 26 and 30. So you would say that's not normally what you would accept for a Nathan Bock in a normal trade scenario."

Trigg added he had put forward his views and opinions on the how the lists of the two new start-up clubs should be formed.

He admitted targeting uncontracted players was 'aggressive' and losing Bock in this manner 'stings' the club.

"I have a personal view and pushed it to the group who set up the concessions for these two teams that you would be better off giving the clubs all of the draft picks that they need and make them trade their way to a list, rather than accessing uncontracted players," he said.

"We thought that was an aggressive way a developing a new franchise but I can tell you one thing, when it happens to you as a club and you lose a player and you get pick 26-30 over the next couple of years it stings."

Author(s)