Didak 'will be test of team culture' - Sports News - Fanatics - the world's biggest events

Didak 'will be test of team culture'

By Daniel Brettig 07/08/2008 06:44:37 PM Comments (0)

Adelaide's long-term push towards an unbreakable team culture would receive the ultimate litmus test if Alan Didak became a trade target later this year.

Crows coach Neil Craig on Thursday said that in trying to build a strength of culture at Adelaide, where team is forever emphasised and off-field issues are scrutinised by the players, the next hurdle was to discover if the club could successfully absorb a player with a chequered record.

"That would be one thing you'd want to have a discussion about with your playing group in general and your senior leadership group in particular," Craig said.

"Trying to develop a culture is one thing, to get it to a level the club wants and the playing group wants - it will never be perfect.

"But I think our next challenge will be, can you bring someone into your football club and is your culture strong enough to maybe modify that type of behaviour?

"I think then you've got a really powerful culture, that's something we would discuss for any player we bring into our footy club.

"Everyone would agree Alan's created some situations for himself from his behaviour, which every club now would have to have a lot of discussion about that, about whether he fits into a culture."

Though Port Adelaide have been more vocal in talking up the prospect of luring Didak home from Melbourne following his latest off-field misadventure, Adelaide appear in more urgent need of a gifted small forward with plenty of miles left on the clock.

Craig admitted that Didak's talent, position and South Australian roots made him decidedly attractive to the Crows.

But he pointed out that until Collingwood made it clear that Didak was available, it would not be worth losing too much sleep.

"We can all waste a lot of time and energy on a player who's just signed a new contract," he said.

"There's a big assumption there that he's going to be available and I'm not sure that will necessarily be the case.

"I think there's a lot of emotion around at the moment with Collingwood and the football public in general, so when that settles down sometimes your thinking settles down as well.

"In general I like his talent and I like the fact he's South Australian, so if he came back to SA I think he'd probably finish his career here."

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