On Tuesday Bock was given his marching orders after becoming the first player to officially pledge his allegiance to the Suns next season.
Bock said he ideally would have liked to play out the season with the Crows, but that he understood the club’s decision to choose a young player - one who would be at the club in 2010 - ahead of him.
AFLPA chief executive Matt Finnis suggested Bock had been punished for being open and honest about his intentions, but on Friday Craig maintained his position, saying there was no value in playing the All-Australian in the remaining two rounds.
“Our side is better with Nathan Bock in it, but we can’t make the finals, which is a critical one for me, so why would I play Nathan Bock knowing that he’s not going to be here next year?” Craig said.
“It could’ve been a different situation. We made the point on the day that based on our current situation I’d made the decision that Nathan wouldn’t be playing. If we were playing finals, it goes back to the question, ‘Are you a better team with Nathan Bock in there?’
“My answer to that is ‘Yes, we are’ and that would have been a consideration going into finals. It’s going to be case-by-case for us as this new culture goes on with player movement and free agency.”
Craig disagreed with the view that skipper Simon Goodwin should also have been barred from selection after announcing his plans to retire at the end of the season.
“The argument is, ‘Well then why would you play Simon Goodwin?’ He’s retiring,” he said.
“I guess the circumstance there is that Nathan is a guy that’s decided to go to another club as distinct from Goodwin, who made a commitment that he was in it from the start and in it to the end.”
Craig also called for more of the onus to go back onto the player managers in the wake of the Nathan Krakouer debacle, which saw Port Adelaide informed of the 22-year-old’s plans to leave the club via the media and a text message.
“I was really happy that Nathan [Bock] put it on the table, which we asked our players to do if they’d come to a conclusion and made their decision, and that enabled us to handle it reasonably well purely from our club’s perspective,” he said.
“I think what’s coming out, without being too specific, is that the managers of the players need to spend some time with their players about how to handle themselves.”
Bock’s place at centre half-back will be taken by young defender Phil Davis, who was dropped to make way for the former best and fairest winner after earning a NAB Rising Star nomination for his performance against Geelong in round 16.
