A year ago, Jack Gunston left AFL club Adelaide seething.

The Crows were told by Gunston's manager last September that the goalsneak would sign a new contract.

So they arranged an 11am meeting.

The Victorian-born forward walked in, said he was home sick, and walked out to catch a 2pm flight to Melbourne - saying he would never return to the Crows.

Adelaide officials said at the time they were "dumbfounded".

They were so incensed they stripped Gunston, who had played 14 games for the Crows, of a club award recognising the achievements of the young player.

Gunston declared he wanted to join Hawthorn and, despite their anger, the Crows struck a deal with the Hawks.

A year later, and the 20-year-old has become a fascinating sub-plot to Saturday's preliminary final between his new and old clubs.

Adelaide maintain, in public anyway, that they're over Gunston's shock departure.

And the Hawks say Gunston himself should take the credit for joining them.

"He was the one who indicated that he was keen to return to Melbourne," Hawthorn's football manager Mark Evans told AAP on Friday.

"Then (recruiting manager) Graham Wright sorted things out from there.

"What tends to happen in these situations is you're catching up with managers and looking at their out of contract list - that happens pretty steadily across the course of the year.

"We had certainly seen where he had played most of his football at Adelaide and he's been playing that sort of role in his time at Hawthorn as well.

"The best thing is that he's actually just gone in and played a really good role.

"Sometimes that role is getting the ball himself or having shots at goal and other times it's feeding it off to others.

"He's very much a team-oriented person and he'll play whatever role he's assigned".

Crows coach Brenton Sanderson said Gunston, who has kicked 33 goals from 17 games in Hawthorn colours, presented a genuine danger to Adelaide's preliminary final hopes.

"He is a good player, he has had a good year," Sanderson said this week.

"He doesn't get a lot of the ball but every possession he gets counts.

"We'll certainly have to put a good player on him."