CROWS GREAT TO CELEBRATE 250TH

Another one of Adelaide’s favourite sons will notch up a major milestone this week when Rory Sloane runs out for his 250th game in front of his adoring fans.

Since being taken with pick 44 in the 2008 NAB AFL Draft, Sloane has gone on to forge one of the great careers in Crows’ history.

Now 33, Sloane was co-captain in 2019 before taking on the captaincy solo between 2020 and 2022 and then handing the reins to Jordan Dawson this season.

Sloane is also a dual Malcolm Blight medallist as Adelaide’s best and fairest player, while he was named in the All-Australian team in 2016.

The Crows’ faithful will have the perfect opportunity to honour Sloane on Saturday night when they welcome GWS to Adelaide Oval in what is shaping as a pivotal game.

Coming off an 18-point loss to Essendon last week, the Crows are just outside the eight and part of a block of teams jostling for spots in the elimination finals.

The Crows should be favourites to win this one, with the game doubling as both a celebration of Sloane’s career as well as a mini final for a team that has shown it can put together football worthy of seeing September action.

After Taylor Walker kicked 10 goals in his 250th game last month, Adelaide will be hoping Sloane can salute in a similar fashion.

Sloane becomes the 10th Crow to reach the 250-game mark.

CROWS 250-GAME PLAYERS

WELCOME TO THE CLUB: Fan favourite Rory Sloane will become the 10th Crow to reach 250 games when he celebrates his milestone on Saturday night.

u FACT FILE RORY SLOANE

Born: March 17, 1990

Recruited from:

Upwey-Tecoma

(Vic)/Eastern U18

Debut: Round 20, 2009 v Hawthorn

Height: 183cm

Weight: 87kg

Games: 249

Goals: 135

Honours: best and fairest 2013, 2016; 2nd best and fairest 2014, 2017, 2019; 3rd best and fairest 2012; All-Australian 2016 (vice-capt); All-Australian squad 2017; AFLPA most courageous player 2017; International Rules Series 2017; pre-season premiership 2012; co-captain 2019; captain 2020-22. Brownlow Medal: career votes 106.

A pair of unlikely key forwards taken just three picks apart at the end of the same National Draft in 2016 have become key planks as North Melbourne and Hawthorn painstakingly rebuild their playing lists.

They have become the highlights of the draft telecast. Young men sitting and watching the coverage, usually with family and friends in tow, hoping and in some cases praying their names will be called out.

Incoming AFL boss Andrew Dillon loves the theatre of it all. So much so that the players and their entourages might become bigger parts of draft night going forward.

But on draft night in November 2016, Nick Larkey preferred to keep things low-key.

He had played a couple of games for Vic Metro and kicked a few goals. He had enjoyed a decent TAC Cup (now Coates Talent League) season for the Oakleigh Chargers.

But his name only appeared sporadically on the various mock drafts that appeared in the lead-up.

He didn’t feature when Callum Twomey, the most authoritative and trusted draft expert of them all, made his projections on

So, it was a quiet draft night spent with immediate family.

“I didn’t want to be that bloke who had all his mates around and then doesn’t get picked up. It’d be the ultimate embarrassment,” he recounted in an interview with the

Mitch Lewis took a similar approach that November. He was coming from even further back.

He was a genuine sporting all-rounder, a gun cricketer and scratch golfer while playing school footy for Assumption College and

He missed selection for Vic Metro and also didn’t rate a mention in any of the pre-draft speculation.

One reason he kept the draft night festivities to a minimum is that the final round of the club championship at his local club Hidden Valley was the following day.

“I came second in case you were wondering,” he told the Record with a laugh.

Both Larkey and Lewis would have their names called out – Larkey by North Melbourne with the 73rd selection and Lewis by Hawthorn three selections later with the last ‘live’ pick of the night. Jake Waterman went to West Coast one pick later as a father-son nomination.

Lewis had flown so far beneath the draft radar that the most notable aspect of his selection was the combination of his name and his destination.

Notable Pick 73

A player called Mitchell Lewis heading to Hawthorn just weeks after the club had offloaded flag-winning superstars Sam Mitchell and Jordan Lewis was the source of plenty of mirth.

But Lewis, like Larkey, has had the last laugh.

He is now the long-term key forward at the Hawks and Sam Mitchell is building his forward line around him.

Heading into the season he was arguably Hawthorn’s most important player and indeed, one of the key factors behind the club’s early-season struggles, and what was overlooked by several commentators, was that he missed the first six games because of a strained ACL.

Notable Pick 76

The Hawks struggled to score without him.

At North, the club is also in the middle of a serious list build, but there are no issues with Larkey.

He recently signed a long-term contract extension that will keep him at the club until 2029, and he is third in the race for this year’s Coleman Medal with 44 goals to his name.

And being key forwards, both had time on their side.

Lewis came to the Hawks the same year Jarryd Roughead returned from a 12-month lay-off because of melanoma.

Hawthorn’s recruiters rated his marking ability and even then, his beautiful kicking motion was an asset.

And while they are entirely different sports, they observed that if he was able was able to develop his golf game to a scratch handicap, then he was likely to work on his footy equally assiduously once in the AFL system.

North’s recruiters were impressed with how Larkey could read the game – he was able to play at both ends of the ground initially, but there was also a belief that he would thrive in the demanding AFL system despite not being a footy obsessive.

One recruiter said of Larkey, “He wasn’t just, footy, footy and more footy. He had the right balance and potential to grow.”

Nevertheless, Larkey walked into Arden St on his first day of pre-season with a laser focus.

“I always said to myself, if I got picked up, I’d throw everything I could into it, which is what I’ve done,” he said.

He was initially worried about his tank.

“I was actually really nervous about the running because I’ve never run a good time trial,” he said.

“I’m a good in-game runner, but back then I was pretty raw and then I was just worried that I’d come in and just be dead last.

“I had this vision in my head that these AFL players were super athletes and would be all running the best times.”

He played two games in his first season, which he now says went “shockingly”, but in 2018 he won the VFL goalkicking and collected the Jim ‘Frosty’ Miller Medal.

“It helped me grow and develop a lot as a player I reckon,” he said. But they couldn’t work out how to play Larkey and Ben Brown in the same team.

There was a game in late 2019 when Brown booted 10 goals against Port Adelaide and Larkey chimed in with five, but it wasn’t until the end of 2020 when Brown was traded to Melbourne that Larkey finally claimed the mantle as North’s No. 1 key forward.

“They must have shown some faith in me because I looked at the