After two seasons of near misses, the Adelaide Crows now are in list protection mode and none other than Rory Sloane is moving into the last year of his contract. He will be a free agent following next season.
Sloane is taking a nonchalant stance regarding his prospects for staying with the club beyond next year, telling The Advertiser, “I’m not fussed how long it takes,” Sloane said. “I’ve never rushed any of my contracts — and there is not going to be a timeline on this one either. And all that speculation is so untrue. I’ve not thought about free agency. I have a contract with Adelaide next year — and that is all I have on my mind at the moment.”
Kevin Bartlett, the player that put the Tiger in Richmond for 403 games over 19 seasons, seems to think Sloane is done in Adelaide following next season and we hope he does not wind up eating crow over that pronouncement.
Sloane’s career path could take many turns. The thing that would help his cause the most is if he were to have a Brownlow season in 2018, at least in terms of money. For certain, he would like to see the Crows break through and win a flag, but in the past two seasons, they have failed to fire when it mattered. The Crows’ soaring offense was tamed by a Tigers’ defense that held the league’s most potent offense to 60 points in the Grand Final.
Bartlett did not mince words in his prediction regarding Sloane’s future, telling SEN’s Hungry for Sport, “Rory Sloane is gone.”
The Crows would most likely hope to avoid another scenario such as that which took place when the club learned that Jake Lever was going and Lever has nowhere near the impact of Sloane.
Sloane and Lever share the same agent, Ned Guy. Guy is set to join the Collingwood Magpies as their list manager, so as the saying goes, the plot thickens.
