Former Adelaide Crows captain Tony McGuiness has opened up about Malcolm Blight’s infamous 1996 player cleanout and spoken about how he’s doing now after years away from the spotlight.

McGuiness spoke on Rowey’s Sports Show about the cull, which included himself, Chris McDermott and Andrew Jarman:

“That was unfortunate for everybody, to be honest,” he said. “You’d like to think in hindsight the club might’ve handled the whole exercise a bit differently rather than lining up eight or nine blokes and saying see you later all within basically an hour or two of each other. It wouldn’t happen now…

“But it was the way things were done then. Blight didn’t want to talk to the payers, that was left to John Reid to do…

“Mine was slightly different to the others in that the club didn’t say in as many words you’re gone. They posed the question and said do you want to play, which is basically saying the same thing without saying it. I fought against that and thought I’m not done and I’d like to keep playing. But if I’m honest about it I probably was done. You can hardly argue it given the club won the next two premierships, which is not to say any of the guys that went couldn’t have played in those sides…

“The other thing that did come from it was moving out senior players probably set a mindset for Ricciuto, McLeod, Goodwin, Edwards and the like saying now you guys have got to step up and boy didn’t they do that.

“It was a shame the way it happened, but that’s the way it happened and you move on.”

McGuiness was in the FIVEAA commentary box and says he couldn’t talk when Adelaide won the 1997 premiership.

“I nearly cried – I didn’t because that would’ve sounded pretty bad on air. When they crossed to me and said how do you feel, I couldn’t talk – I was just dumbfounded, not out of an animosity… The best players played and you can’t argue with it.”

Asked by Rowey how he was doing all these years after he resigned from the then named McGuiness McDermott Foundation and stepped away from the public spotlight, McGuiness assured fans: “Everything’s fine and just looking forward. That’s it.”

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