ADELAIDE skipper Rory Sloane says it is unfair to blame any individuals for the Crows' training breach last week.
The club on Monday was sanctioned for breaking the AFL's COVID-19 rules while 16 of its players were in isolation in the Barossa Valley.
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Each player was hit with a suspended one-game ban while assistant coach Ben Hart, who was also present at the training session where a group of eight players trained together, was suspended for six weeks for his role.
Club legend Hart will not be able to access club facilities until June 22, which could come after the season's resumption next month, while criticism has also been directed at Tom Doedee, who was a part of the session and a member of Adelaide's leadership group.
But Sloane said the Crows as a collective needed to take ownership of the error.
"It's easy to reflect on it now … the AFL has already investigated the whole situation and we clearly just made a mistake but you can't pin this on one person," Sloane said.
"As a whole footy club – not Ben Hart, not Tom Doedee, not anyone else – but the whole footy club made a mistake. There were a couple of mistakes made.
"It's silly to try and point the blame on one person."
The players have remained at the golf club facility until the end of their 14-day isolation period after reentering South Australia, but have been training individually.
Sloane said the group, which is a majority of the club's younger players, has remained in good spirits despite being implicated in the incident.
"Early on it would have been a bit of the unknown and frustration of 'Have we done something wrong?' and just waiting for the sanction," he said.
"There were a few days they had to wait and stress on that. But speaking to them now, they're up there and they have to train on their own, which is different to how everyone else can train at the moment, they're not really allowed to cross paths with one another.
"Right now it amazed me how positive they were. Everyone up there have been managing to find a positive in a tough situation for some of these young boys.
"They're staying busy. They've got a few little games going on, they're Zoom-ing each other, a lot of them love their video games as well … they're finding ways to stay really positive in a hard situation."
Sloane, who undertook the AFL’s mandatory COVID-19 test on Wednesday, said he understood players will need to adhere to strict social distancing rules from the AFL as the League continues to plot its return to games.
Hart's absence for the next period, as well as the recent departures of assistants Marty Mattner and Paul Thomas as a result of the financial fallout from the shutdown period, means new Crows coach Matthew Nicks could be stretched in the role.
But Sloane said it would be up to senior players to help out.
"We've had a lot of time to get our heads around what the rest of the season will look like so guys are ready to step up and take the reins as almost player-coaches, which is going back to a bit of local days," he said.
"A lot of guys want to be coaches when they leave so this is a great opportunity for them to step up."
