Adelaide's caretaker coach Mark Bickley says his AFL club swiftly moved on from the disappointment of losing promising defender Phil Davis to Greater Western Sydney.

Davis on Tuesday walked out of the Crows to join GWS next season, a move which Bickley said shocked Adelaide staff and players.

"We're bitterly disappointed," Bickley told reporters on Thursday.

"But at the same time, he has made his decision, he goes, and we keep moving forward.

"They (Crows players) are disappointed, they would have loved Phil to stick around, they recognise that he's a quality person and a quality player and we had always factored him into our future plans.

"So to have him leave leaves a bit of a hole, but it creates an opportunity for another young player to step up and fill that position.

"The guys are professional and whilst it was a bit of a shock to them, a lot of them didn't even know Phil was in negotiations or whatever he had been doing."

Collingwood president Eddie McGuire said GWS had cheated the system by luring Davis from the Crows during the current season.

But Bickley was more diplomatic, saying he was uncertain what the rules were.

"I don't know the ins and outs of what the rules are," he said.

"Whilst I would have loved Phil to be around the place and we rate him as a person and a player, he's not here, so my attention shifts very quickly to the controllables."

Bickley said he would be disappointed if Adelaide's list manager, David Noble, didn't have a hit list of targeted players to join the Crows.

"Every club has players coming out of contract and every list manager wouldn't be doing his job if they weren't looking at opportunities and recognising what type of players they want and trying to secure them," he said.

"I'd be a bit disappointed if David Noble didn't have a list of people that he would be looking at in terms of filling some of the holes in our side.

"Every club is going through exactly the same scenario.

"This (GWS) is a new club which has a set of rules and we'd expect them to abide by them, just like they would expect us to abide by the rules as well.

"... I would suspect that player managers and recruiting people talk and whether that is classified as approaching players out of contract, I'm not sure.

"There is a grey area there and I'm sure people exploit that."

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