CROWS coach Neil Craig says his club won’t ‘waste time’ debating Alan Didak’s potential return to South Australia until, if ever, the Collingwood forward is made available for trade.
Craig agreed Didak’s talent was undeniable, but said there would be alarm bells ringing for any club thinking about snaring the sanctioned forward.
Didak and teammate Heath Shaw will both serve club imposed suspensions until the end of the season after a drink-driving incident on Sunday, and speculation is rife they might be put up for trade by the Magpies ahead of the NAB AFL Draft in November. Shaw’s brother Rhyce is serving a two-game suspension for his involvement.
“I think the first thing there is that we can all waste a lot of time and energy on a player (Didak) that has just signed a new contract. There’s a big assumption there that he’s going to be available. I’m not sure if that will necessarily be the case,” Craig said on Thursday.
“I would think there is a lot of emotion around the issue at the moment with the Collingwood footy club and with the public in general and, when that settles down, sometimes your thinking settles down too.
“First of all, he’s not a player that is available and until that changes, our club certainly won’t waste time discussing what could or couldn’t happen.”
Both South Australian clubs have expressed interest in talking to the Port Adelaide Magpies junior, but Craig said the question of whether or not Didak could fit into another club’s culture was an obvious concern.
“In general, I like Alan’s talent. I like the fact that he’s South Australian, so if he came back to South Australia, he’d probably finish his career here,” Craig said.
“I think everyone would agree that Alan has created some situations for himself from his behaviour which every club, now with the way the sport and the industry is going, would have to have a lot of discussion about and a lot of discussion about whether he fits into a culture, whatever that culture may be.
“It is one thing to try and develop a culture to get it to a level that the club wants and the playing group wants. It will never be perfect because we’re not perfect.
“You guys [the media] can drag out as many examples as you like to say; ‘Well if you think you’re perfect Craig, have a look at this’.
“So we’re not perfect but I think our next challenge would be to see can we bring someone into our football club and too see if your culture is strong enough to maybe modify that sort of behaviour.
“I think then you’ve got a really powerful culture and that’s something we would discuss for any player coming into our footy club. It’s an enormous challenge.”
