New Sydney midfielder Taylor Adams expects he will never “fully get over” the pain of missing out as his Collingwood teammates won a flag in September.
Adams, who was the Magpies’ vice-captain before he pursued a move to the Swans, said he bore no hard feelings towards his former club but remained devastated by how his season ended.
The 30-year-old clarified the steps he took to leave Collingwood, insisting he had not committed to leaving until the days after his side won the grand final.
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He said the support from the club had been “absolutely amazing” as he suffered a hamstring strain in the lead up to the preliminary final and desperately tried to recover in time for the decider, but acknowledged missing selection had helped cement his decision to leave.
“It’s been a really difficult eight weeks, it certainly played a role in a small part of me probably wanting to remove myself from the club, in a sense,” Adams said.
“I don’t think I’ll ever fully get over that … it’s not just me, it’s my family, my support network, people at the footy club who put so much time and effort in and then you fall one hurdle short.
“It’s heartbreaking, and it was so bittersweet because there were so many people at the footy club who I’ve been side-by-side with for so many years who I knew deserved it, and I was extremely happy for them.”
Adams, who began his career in Sydney as a GWS foundation player before joining Collingwood in 2014, said a chat with close friend Brodie Grundy had also helped sweeten the deal to join the Swans.
He said Grundy had come to the decision to move north from Melbourne well before Adams had considered his own move.
“(Grundy) had absolutely no idea that I was coming up, because I had no idea. So that probably helped the situation,” he said.
“I remember after I came up here on the Wednesday (after the grand final), gave him a call and just asked him what he was thinking, and clearly I took that into consideration in my decision-making.
“I’m rapt to see him happy, he’s too good a player to be playing twos, we all know that.”
Adams said he had told his manager, Winston Rous from Phoenix Management Group, to explore options for him to leave Collingwood two weeks before the grand final, but not to discuss any offers with him until after the season had ended.
“My manager was bugging me all year about how happy I was playing in my role, and my response to him every time was, ‘I don’t care as long as we’re winning’,” he said.
“Then it got to a point where we had to make some moves, which was probably two weeks before the grand final when he said, ‘are you happy for me to go out and explore?’
“I said, ‘yep, but I don’t want to hear about it’ … and then the rest is history, the following Wednesday (after the grand final) I came up here.”
Sydney had its first full squad pre-season training session at Moore Park on Monday, with defender Robbie Fox claiming victory in a 2km time trial from draftee midfielder Caiden Cleary.
Category B rookie Indhi Kirk, the son of Swans legend Brett, finished fourth in the time trial.
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