Are the Crows living up to grand vision?

Phil Walsh, Patrick Dangerfield and Nathan van Berlo look on during an open training session. Photo Sarah Reed. Source: News Corp Australia

HAPPY 25th anniversary Adelaide Football Club.

Tomorrow night the membership can gather at West Lakes for the Crows' first annual meeting as an independent football club, released from the SANFL's hold.

"Free at last, free at last ...," chairman Rob Chapman, an SANFL appointee, can finally say after having that speech on hold for two years.

The members — or "customers" as chief operating officer Nigel Smart calls them — will for the first time in 25 seasons appoint two directors after considering nine nominees. Brownlow Medallist Mark Ricciuto is a lock.

A new era begins at West Lakes. As much as Season 2015 is about reflecting, celebrating and admiring the most-successful start-up expansion club in VFL-AFL history — the Crows have never needed a bail out, there is much-needed hope for the future to sell.

New coach in Phil Walsh. New captain in Taylor Walker. New chief executive in Andrew Fagan. And very much a new tone to the Adelaide Football Club that appears to be moving further away from its SANFL roots than before.

The Crows seem to have adopted from American football, in particular the New England Patriots, a philosophy of: "Say nothing, say nothing and then say even less." It is the bubble Ross Lyon built at St Kilda and taken to a new level in AFL.

Closed training sessions. Minimal public exposure with the location of workouts kept as an ultra-secret. Strangely, even the Crows' membership/customer count — that may have fallen behind Port Adelaide's 54,492 for the first time — is a guarded number, no longer on the club's website.

Walsh has made the most significant statements on how the Adelaide Football Club is to look and behave in his time.

While his squad lives "elite standards" with a "team first" attitude, the now 25-season-old Adelaide Football Club is to be "authentic" with "no spin". So are the Crows living up to this grand vision?

Among the nine candidates for the two seats to the new Adelaide board is commercial lawyer Daniel Kiley. He is a man from the outer. By his own profile — on the impressive website 19thdan.com.au — it is clear he is one of the "rusted-on Crows" who stayed attached to the same seat at Football Park for 15 years.

Kiley has perfectly reflected the frustration of a supporter and membership (or customer) base that notes the Crows have failed to live to the pre-Walsh ideals of being "Uncompromising. Inclusive. Proud."

Kiley's vision for this new, independent Adelaide Football Club has resonated louder than anything officially declared at West Lakes in the past six months (with the exception of Smart continuing a string of bizarre tweets by referring to the Crows members as customers). Why? Because officially, the Crows have never been more silent. At least that ensures no spin, as ordered by Walsh.

There is no doubt the Crows have been an overexposed football club at times.

Right now, they have overcorrected ... and perhaps that explains why by membership/customer count it is no longer No. 1 in SA.