ADELAIDE chief executive Andrew Fagan isn't surprised if contracted players meet with rival clubs as the Crows aim to retain in-demand duo Jake Lever and Mitch McGovern.
Reports surfaced last week that Lever had met with officials from Melbourne, ramping up speculation the talented defender is set to leave the Crows at the end of the year.
"I don't get concerned at all about those reports, I actually expect players from time to time meet (with other clubs)," Fagan told reporters on Monday.
"Whether Jake has or not is kind of a bit irrelevant.
"We kind of assume people will go through a really thorough decision-making process and engage with their families and engage with their partners and engage with other football clubs and engage with their manager and engage with us as a footy club.
"That's actually to be expected."
Fagan didn't provide an update on the status of contract talks with Lever and McGovern.
"It really doesn't help the situation to provide a running commentary on negotiations and I think people understand that," he said.
"We've made it clear to our fans that we're doing everything possible that we maintain a competitive and healthy list, not just for this year but into the future.
"We're doing all that we can across our list."
Despite the uncertainty over the futures of the two young stars, the Crows continue to excel on the field, firming into premiership favourtism after Sunday's 84-point Showdown smashing of Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval.
Midfielder Richard Douglas said the contract talk wasn't distracting them from their ultimate goal of breaking a 19-year premiership drought.
"We're hungry to be the best we can be," Douglas said.
"We want to finish top two and we want to start the big season again and see how far we can get.
"We think our best footy is good enough and we've got a really strong group who is hungry, but we've achieved nothing yet, let's not make any mistakes about that.
"We've played some good footy, but we need to keep playing some good footy for the back half of the year, and if we can do that, we'll get what we're after."
