The untold story of one of Noble’s all-time player recruitments

When Adelaide was named one of eight clubs to join the inaugural AFLW season, one challenge loomed large – finding top-tier talent.

David Noble, who was the Crows’ Head of Football at the time, together with Phil Harper, were two of the main people charged with the massive task.

It was, however, a challenge that Noble was eager to take on, given he had spent countless years prior to the June 2016 announcement lobbying the AFL to hand the Crows a licence.

And there was one player at the top of Noble’s list – Chelsea Randall – who would later down the track go on to not only Captain the team, but become one of the Club’s most decorated stars.

“There were a couple of trial games going around and we were doing some talent scouting and we saw Chelsea on one of the videos that we were doing some assessments on,” Noble said.

“I picked up the phone and rang her directly in Newman (WA), told her who I was and told her what I was thinking.

“I told her I’d love to jump on a plane and come up and visit her. She was surprised that there was that level of interest from interstate.

“But I jumped on a plane to Perth, caught another plane to Newman, and spent the day with her.”

Noble said he was instantly taken by Chelsea’s kind nature and knew straight away she would make for an important selection.

“We drove around Newman, we had lunch together, we chatted about moving interstate, we talked about the options of what that might look like not only from a playing perspective, but also from a work perspective,” Noble said.

“Everybody spoke so highly of her and she knew everybody’s name when we stopped at parks for a training session, or she had a meeting with a school, or whatever it was.

“I was just awe-struck by how engaged all the people in Newman were with Chelsea and how loved and respected she was.

“I came back to the Club and said ‘she is the absolute person that we need to get’. She’s been one of my best ever recruits. She’s up there with Eddie Betts, Lachie Neale, she’s just a complete package.”

Noble can clearly remember the feeling when the AFL announced the Adelaide Football Club as one of the eight teams set to form a national women’s football league.

The announcement brought a mix of excitement and trepidation, as well as a determination to build the best possible program for South Australian women, who had been starved of their own national competition.

“The interesting thing was that before the licence, I think it was in 2011 or 2012, we held a couple of trial games in partnership with the SANFL and that gave the Club a really strong insight into the appetite and the thirst for the women to play,” Noble told AFC Media ahead of the Crows’ 100th AFLW game on Sunday.

“We had fought hard (to get a licence) because we felt with the local competition there was talent there, it was just that we needed to build the infrastructure and the talent all at the same time.

“It was very exciting that it had been awarded to us. There was a fair bit of competition with Port Adelaide, but we felt that we were able to present a case that allowed us to go to market and secure some talent, which we ended up doing.

“Once we were awarded the licence, it was like ‘now what do we do? We were aspiring to replicate what the men had as far as opportunity, resources, key drivers of talent acquisition and growth, all those sorts of areas and facilities.”

Although Noble departed the Crows in September 2016 to take up the role of Brisbane’s General Manager of Football, he spent three months working hard, alongside Harper, to get the Crows’ AFLW team ready.

As part of the licence agreement, the inaugural Crows team was to be made with a combination of players from South Australia and the Northern Territory.

And Noble said the partnership was a great initiative and allowed the NT talent to shine through.

“The guys in the NT took up the challenge really well. They were certainly very keen to get involved and it provided the NT with an avenue to get involved in AFL,” Noble said.

“It was a way of bridging that gap to continue their growth and development.

“The NT had a fairly strong local female competition, and then it was one of the areas when the AFL said to us ‘well you don’t have enough talent’ that we thought ‘who could we partner with’, who would be interested, and the conversations were pretty open and honest as to how we made that logistical concern work.”

Noble also said the work Harper and current Senior Coach Matthew Clarke did should not be underestimated, with the pair being key contributors behind the team’s sustained success. 

“Phil did a great job, he was at the grassroots putting together infrastructure, and the foundations of what’s been able to be established now,” he said.

“It shouldn’t be undersold the work that Phil and Doc at the time put in, Phil was a rock and really established the foundations.

“Doc is a big softie and his personality really lent itself to a brand new program. It was the care and nature that he showed in the growth and development of not only the program, but the individuals.

“He was always willing to invest time, whether it was a meeting around talent, or whether it was around a training session, or after a long day on the track with the guys, he was always prepared to help, and I think that’s what’s made him such a good coach.”

Despite not being at the Club for the Crows’ inaugural AFLW flag, Noble watched from afar with a sense of pride and was glad Adelaide had claimed the inaugural Premiership.

“That was pretty cool. It was fantastic,  I had always believed that women should have the same opportunity as the guys,” Noble said.

“It made a statement to the competition and showed that this is genuine and it’s here to stay, and it was great that it was able to be Adelaide first.

“I think (the 100th game) brings to fruition the vision that we had, and to look back proudly and go ‘I played a small part in the growth of such a strong, emerging competition’, that’s now on a national scale.”

The Crows will celebrate their 100th AFLW match when they take on Sydney at Unley Oval on Sunday at 2.35pm.

Be there and bring a friend for free, using the codeword AFLW20252FOR1 when you buy tickets here.