From Localfootysa...
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/afl ... 6493939498
Michaelangelo Rucci wrote:
Crows may buy Sturt as its reserves side
ADELAIDE'S determination to have a stand-alone reserves team has included the plan to buy cash-strapped SANFL club Sturt.
But the off-field complications - in particular smashing the Crows' image as the "Team for All South Australians" - has not allowed the thought of converting Sturt to the "Double Crows" beyond the Adelaide board room.
Adelaide is determined to create a reserves team next year, keeping every Crow in one jumper and playing to coach Brenton Sanderson's game plan.
But the "Sturt Crows" concept has now highlighted the major marketing nightmare the Adelaide Football Club faces by entering a team in the SANFL.
Every SANFL fan comes to hate the Crows as they become a weekly enemy.
Sturt's $2.2 million debt also turned off the Crows which could field a reserves team for $350,000 a season.
The "Crows reserves" in the SANFL is an uglier concept considering it demands Adelaide players with SANFL roots - such as Bernie Vince at Woodville-West Torrens and Luke Brown at Norwood - play against their original clubs.
As Port Adelaide pushes ahead with its moves to make the SANFL-based Magpies operate as the Power's reserves team, Adelaide's planning for a stand-alone reserves team is being held up by the protracted SANFL-AFL talks to release the Crows and Power licences to the AFL Commission.
Adelaide football operations chief Phil Harper says there is a 50-50 chance the Crows will continue to have their excess players spread across the nine SANFL clubs next year.
However, there will be a Crows reserves team in 2014.
Where this Crows reserves team plays - be it the SANFL, the VFL or a new competition - and how it is staffed with "top-up" players remains in the planning phases.
But there is now no turning back from Adelaide's mission to have all its players working to one coaching philosophy.
"Anyone watching the AFL and SANFL can see the game is very different between the two competitions - and most football supporters can see that," said Harper.
"We need our players working to the same style of football every week.
"And we need our players wearing one jumper from the day they are drafted to the Adelaide Football Club. We currently have (Woodville-West Torrens draftee) Cam Ellis-Yolmen spending two years at our club now and he has never worn the Crows jumper."
Sturt chief executive Matt Benson says he is unaware of how his club was considered for a partnership or takeover by the Crows.
"We have had no formal approach - and no informal approach," he said.
"The only time I have discussed the Crows' options (for a reserves team) was when I saw (Adelaide football department staffer and former Sturt executive) Graeme Dunstan at the under-18 final on Sunday.
"My personal view is there is nothing wrong with the Crows allocating coaching staff and training resources to SANFL clubs that are aligned to them. And the same goes for Port Adelaide.
"That can be done without undermining the quality of the SANFL."
Glenelg president Gary Metcalf has taken exception to Sanderson's call to remove AFL-drafted players from the SANFL.
"The image is the AFL clubs don't trust us to look after their players for two hours every weekend," he said.
Norwood president Joe Tripodi adds the debate on reserves teams for the AFL-based clubs has ignored the problems the SANFL clubs face by inheriting AFL draftees.
"We embrace the AFL players and in doing so upset the balance of what we are trying to achieve by developing our under-18s," he said.
"Then we face not having AFL players during the finals because they either are having surgery or don't want to play in the SANFL anymore.
"But do you hear us complaining?"
