“It would be a sad way to finish”: Crows veteran wrestling with retirement call

Adelaide veteran Rory Sloane is believed to be weighing up his future.

The 34-year-old had surgery on a detached retina in January, a similar procedure to the one he had back in 2021.

SEN contributor and Channel 9 journalist Tom Morris understands that people around Sloane believe the former Crows captain is considering his future in the game due to the risks involved with his eye.

“I need to be careful what I say here because I can’t profess to know what Rory Sloane is thinking or how he may or may not be wrestling with his football mortality,” Morris said on SEN Breakfast.

“I can say that there are enough people around Rory Sloane who do expect him to retire this year because of the ongoing danger of further injury to his eye, which is the reason he hasn’t played so far this year.

“That would be unfortunate, clearly, but what I believe he and the people around him are weighing up is the risks of playing SANFL or playing for Adelaide when they’re probably not going to win a flag versus long-term damage.

“That will become clearer over the coming weeks, and maybe even before the mid-season draft if it does materialise that way.

“It would be a sad way to finish but it feels like there’s no other option.”

Kane Cornes wonders what the point would be for Sloane considering the Crows aren’t going as well as many would have expected.

“This happens sometimes,” Cornes said.

“It’s not dissimilar to the concussion discussion that players are grappling with now because of the long-term effects.

“You’ve got a long life to lead post-football.

“We’re at Round 8, he hasn’t played yet, he probably wasn’t in their best 22 at the start of the year, so it’s going to take him four or five weeks of playing SANFL.

“Then we get to Round 13-14 and if they’re not in premiership contention you would weigh it up, you’d go, ‘What’s the point?’”

The two-time Malcolm Blight Medallist has played 255 games for the Crows. He last featured in Round 23 last year.