The AFL has ruled that the sons of SANFL 200-gamer Darryl Smith are not eligible for father-son selection by an AFL club.

The Crows last week sought clarification on the rule but have been told Jesse and Bailey Smith do not qualify because their father did not play his 200 games at one SANFL club.

Smith played 175 games for Sturt and then 25 for West Torrens before he retired at the end of the 1990 season.

‘’Darryl and his boys will be very disappointed they are not eligible to be part of our academy,” Crows football operations general manager Phil Harper said.

“But we will keep in touch with the lads and try to help develop their football and hopefully they take an interest in the Crows.”

Harper said the new Father-Son Academy would be forced to focus on boys who are eligible because their fathers played 100 AFL games with Adelaide.

“The SANFL section of the father-son rule has produced nothing for us but there is a large group of boys who we should be able to start working with in the next five to ten years.”

Stefan Jarman (son of Andrew), Connor McLeod (son of Andrew), Ben Jarman (son of Darren) and Zac Hart (son of Ben) have already joined the Club’s new Father-Son Academy.

Sons of Crows eligible for father-son (and the year they are eligible for the draft) under current rules:

Andrew Jarman (1) 2010; Shaun Rehn (2) 2013, 2019; Darren Jarman (1) 2015; David Pittman (1) 2015; Tyson Edwards (3) 2016, 2019, 2020; Tony McGuinness (1) 2016; Andrew McLeod (1) 2016; Ben Hart (2) 2017, 2027; Nigel Smart (2) 2017, 2022; Simon Tregenza (2) 2022, 2024; Chris McDermott (1) 2023; Scott Welsh (2) 2023, 2025; Simon Goodwin (1) 2024; Mark Stevens (2) 2024, 2026; Mark Ricciuto (2) 2025, 2028); Ben Rutten (2) 2025, 2028; Mark Bickley (1) 2026, Brett Burton (1) 2027, Scott Thompson (1) 2028; Nathan Bassett (1) 2029;