While conceding departed club champion Patrick Dangerfield can't be replaced, Adelaide have hailed their AFL trade period as a terrific bounty.
The Crows lost Dangerfield to Geelong and midfielder Sam Kerridge to Carlton but secured four players - Troy Menzel, Paul Seedsman, Curtly Hampton and Dean Gore - and also have two first-round picks in next month's national draft.
"We are really satisfied with what we have been able to pull together ... what we targeted, we got," Adelaide's head of football David Noble told reporters on Thursday.
"We have always said you trade for needs and you draft for talent so, to be able to pull together what we did, has been a terrific result."
Adelaide and Geelong struck a deal for Dangerfield early in the trade period which Noble said enabled the Crows to "manoeuvre" through the remainder of the trading timeframe.
"If you look at it as a straight in and out, you probably say you don't necessarily replace it (Dangerfield)," he said.
"But the research and the time that we spent with other sports, particularly the American sports, they have helped us understand that what you lose, you don't necessarily bring back in in one piece.
"... You actually pull apart the pieces that are exiting, but you bring them in in a different format.
"That is why we are really pleased with what we have done. We believe that the components that we have lost, we're able to bring in.
"Are you ever going to compare it to a straight loss? - probably not.
"And that has never been our strategy; we were never going to try to replace a Patrick Dangerfield for another player."
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