Adelaide will be “reasonably aggressive” in this year’s trade period, says head of football Adam Kelly.
The Crows have been active at the draft by adding a plethora of youngsters to their list across the last few years.
Last trade period they somewhat moved away from that by recruiting Jordan Dawson from Sydney, which has been a clever move given his quality, and this year they will likely follow suit and pursue more established players to add to their youthful list.
“We’ve been to the draft the last five years, we’ve been using our first-round and our early selections,” Kelly said on SEN SA Breakfast.
“We brought Jordan in last year and we’re very open-minded moving into this trade period about the need to bring in some mature talent. That’s certainly discussions we’ll have as the year progresses and things unfold.
“There’s a preparedness, now we’re at where we’re at in the rebuild, to look at that.”
Given the Crows have been paying a younger group of late, Kelly says there is room to move and be aggressive within their salary cap.
“As you might expect, we’re two years running with the youngest squad in the AFL, we’ve got some capacity there,” he added.
“We can be reasonably aggressive provided we can identify the right players to bring in and players who will want to be part of what we’re building at the club.”
Kane Cornes forecast that Kelly would not comment on players from other clubs when asking about Adelaide’s reported interest in Josh Dunkley.
The Western Bulldogs midfielder is out of contract this year and there have been plenty of murmurings that the Crows are keen.
“You’re right that we won’t comment on other players,” he laughed.
“I guess list management committee is constantly looking at the lists around the competition and assessing what we need as our fans would expect.
“We’re doing everything we possibly can to improve on an annual basis. This is a year where, having been to the draft heavily over the last five years, if there’s an opportunity for us to trade out picks to bring in some mature talent to help with our young group and to make us better, we’re certainly going to pursue those opportunities.”
Kelly also commented on Taylor Walker’s contract and whether or not it will be a two-year deal for the veteran forward.
“We’re in negotiation with Taylor’s management at the moment,” he said of the 32-year-old.
“It’s fairly well in line with what happened last year. As we got through that mid-season bye, we started those conversations in earnest.
“Taylor’s obviously in really good form and continuing that form that he showed last year. Those conversations have commenced and we’ll continue two work through that.
“I won’t go into specifics, we’ve only just started the conversations and we’re not even understanding what the expectations are at the moment.
“We’ll let that play out over the coming weeks and months.”
The Crows, who sit 15th on the ladder with a 4-9 record, will look to land their fifth win of the season when they meet 17th-placed North Melbourne at Blundstone Arena on Sunday.