THE 2018 AFL season wasn’t a happy place for the Adelaide Crows who failed to make the finals after a spot in the Grand Final last year.

Things fell apart early during the clubs preseason training camp run by the company Collective Minds.

It then faced a nightmare run of soft tissue injuries before ultimately being eliminated from finals contention and finishing 12th on the ladder.

As their off-season got underway, sooner than they would have expected, they were rocked when star utility Mitch McGovern requested a trade away from the club.

The 23-year-old McGovern had signed a three-year contract extension at the end of last season.

McGovern’s looming departure adds to a recent list of players leaving the Crows including Patrick Dangerfield, Kurt Tippett, Phil Davis, Jake Lever and Charlie Cameron.

Last season it was Lever who decided he wanted a new club and was subsequently moved to Melbourne, but it didn’t come without some turmoil.

Crows captain Taylor Walker was “furious” with the then 21-year-olds decision and didn’t try and hide his emotions.

“Tex Walker, as the captain of the football club, was furious and let him (Lever) know in no uncertain manner,” Lyon told SEN Breakfast. “I’m told it was very aggressive.”

Now with McGovern’s decision to walk away, all eyes turned to Walker to see just how he’d handle the situation.

And it didn’t take long.

Walker is set to speak to McGovern to find out why he wants to break his contract with the Crows and admitted the move didn’t sit well with him.

“I don’t know … and that is something that I would like to find out,” Walker told Triple M radio on Wednesday.

“It’s disappointing that we lose a quality player and a quality fella.

“I do take it personally but I have learnt in my 11-years (in the AFL system) that it’s just the caper we’re in.”

But AFL legend and media personality Brian Taylor has been quick to slam Walker for the treatment being dished out this year as opposed to last year.

“I wonder what Tex is saying about McGovern now given what he said about Lever this time last year,” Taylor said on Triple M’s Rush Hour.

“Made life unbearable for him, to the point where he was depressed and wasn’t really a good situation for him for a young kid wanting to go home.

“I wonder what he’s saying about Mitch McGovern ... guess what he (Walker) is saying? ‘That’s ok, that’s all good, I want to have a bit of a chat to him, that’s nice’ — gee he’s changed his bloody tune.”

Former North Melbourne president and host of the Rush Hour, James Brayshaw was staggered by the rate in which players are leaving the club.

“They have got a departure issue. It is amazing to me that when you look at the other southern interstate clubs, in other words Port Adelaide, West Coast and Fremantle there is nothing like that attrition rate,” Brayshaw added.

AFL journalist Damien Barrett backed up Brian Taylor’s standpoint and added just how much of a divide was caused among the playing group by Lever’s decision.

“BT’s point is right it does go back to around about this time last year were they ostracizied the man who was going to play centre half back in a Grand Final team to the point where, as Sam Newman revealed on the Footy Show, he wasn’t even sitting with teammates in the airport coming to Melbourne for the grand final,” Barrett said.

Taylor, who has a close relationship to the Lever family, opened up on just how tough the time was for the family and how he’d heard calls from the team which left him “staggered”.

“I was absolutely staggered with one particular phone call that I heard and I just don’t reckon that should be put on any young kid and I’m glad to see that Tex is looking at it differently. Perhaps he’s learnt from that lesson of last year and perhaps he’s attacking the McGovern situation a little differently.”

When pressed on who the phone call came from, Taylor confirmed it had come from a player but wouldn’t state if it came from a captain (Walker).

“The content of the conversation was very, very short and angry and to the point,” Taylor added.

While the pre-season camp was blamed for the broken infrastructure at the club throughout the 2018 season, perhaps it was the brutal treatment of Lever that played a role in McGovern’s decision.

— with AAP