Luke Hodge has revealed he was approached by Mark Ricciuto about coming out of retirement to play for Adelaide in 2017.
Hodge hung up the boots after a decorated 305-game stint at Hawthorn but decided months later to come out of retirement and continue his career at Brisbane.
Ricciuto, a Crows board member, first posed the question to Hodge over a beer at a function.
“It was a low-key chat,” Hodge told SEN’s Whateley.
“It was 2017 after we played over there and I’d announced my retirement and I was actually doing a function at one of his (Ricciuto’s) pubs.
“He grabbed me a beer and said, ‘Did you want to come over here and play a year?’ They were obviously up the top of the ladder and going pretty well.
“He said they needed to help a few of the younger guys not playing every week … just teaching them a thing here or there.
“My mindset was I had a really good year with Hawthorn in a development role with all the young guys coming through, so that was about as far as it went.
“But then obviously Brisbane came along. It was just a better fit.”
Ricciuto contacted Hodge for a second time in 2019 about the possibility of him relocating to West Lakes.
“I spoke to 'Roo' last year and he said, ‘What’s the family position?’, because he knows that we’ve got family over in Adelaide,” the four-time premiership Hawk said.
“I said, ‘We’ve got a baby due in December and our kids are really enjoying it up here (Brisbane)’.
“That was about as far as we got. It was a couple of phone calls.”
Hodge called time on his stellar 346-game career following the Lions’ finals exit last year.