Former club chief executive Brian Waldron says gun Adelaide out-of-contract defender Jake Lever is destined for Collingwood in 2018.

If confirmed, it would be a big boost to the Pies dwindling key defensive stocks, having lost Nathan Brown, Jonathon Marsh, and Jack Frost at the end of last season.

“My understanding is he’s only going one place, they’re black and white – Collingwood,” Waldron told SEN’s Hungry for Sport.

“The Northern spy says Jake Lever’s going to go to one club and it will be Collingwood, and he’ll tell Adelaide when the season’s over he wants to go to Collingwood.

“He has to get a trade, but that’s where he’s going to tell them he wants to go.”

Earlier on SEN Breakfast, Sam McClure revealed Lever had personally met with the Melbourne in recent weeks, with the Western Bulldogs and Essendon also reportedly in the chase.

McClure said that Lever – along with fellow promising tall Mitch McGovern – wasn’t happy with the first offer put to him by the Crows.

It is believed that there is as much as $300,000 difference between the Crows offer and that of Victorian clubs.