Seven years ago former Adelaide Captain Rory Sloane was at a crossroads in his career.

Sloane, who was 28 at the time, was torn between remaining with the Crows and staying in Adelaide, or joining his childhood club, St Kilda, who were offering him a chance to return home to Victoria.

Speaking on Trade Radio on Tuesday, Sloane revealed he seriously considered taking the Saints up on their offer.

“It was one of those periods in my life where the unknown – I was 28 – I knew I could sign a longer deal, I was probably at the peak of my career,” Sloane said.

“I was like ‘one, you’ve got to maximise what you can make and what sort of deal you can get at that period of your career’.

“But two, with where I was at personally as well, we’d just been married Belinda and I, we knew we wanted to have children and we didn’t know what that would look like in Adelaide.

“I always thought if we were ever going to make a move home to Melbourne, St Kilda would be the one – my old man would’ve loved seeing me play for the Saints, he’s a mad Saints supporter. I thought ‘you’d be silly not to look at it’.”

Sloane said his discussions with St Kilda were much more lowkey than the type of meetings players have with rival clubs these days.

“They (St Kilda) came, but I did things a bit more discreetly back then, there was no being followed or door stopped or having meetings face-to-face,” Sloane said.

“It was a fake Instagram account. I was so conscious of being caught having a discussion with St Kilda, I just wanted that to stay really in house.”

Despite entertaining the Saints’ offer, Sloane opted to remain with the Crows.

He went on to become one of the Club’s most well respected and highly decorated players, lining up in 255 games across 16 seasons, before hanging up his boots in 2024.

“I looked at it, (the Saints’ offer), entertained it, but in the end for us, we’ve just loved Adelaide all these years and that’s what it came down to,” Sloane said.

“My wife and I said ‘do we enjoy Adelaide?’, and we loved it here, we love the people, we love the place.”

On his former Club’s trade period so far, Sloane agreed with the Crows’ approach in not trading for the sake of it, and its pursuit for a fair deal for Premiership Lion Callum Ah Chee.

“I think they’ve done the right things, just kept really active, and I think they’ve kept their options open,” Sloane said.

“They’re taking calls, making sure (they) have these meetings – the (Christian) Petracca one didn’t come through but for me it sounds like they just want to keep really active, which is what the Club needs to do.

“They need to keep adding depth, they need to keep adding some talent – they’ve just got to continue to go for and fill the right positions – and go role based for someone they need.

“What they’ve done in the past in recent years has been outstanding in terms of getting (James) Peatling, (Isaac) Cumming, (Alex) Neal-Bullen, (Izak) Rankine, (Jordan) Dawson – they have been doing quite well if you look at the past three years.”

The 2025 Continental Tyres AFL Trade Period will enter its final day on Wednesday, October 15, ending at 7pm (ACDT).