If Crows co-captain Taylor Walker could have the summer again, would he follow Travis Boak’s path

Travis Boak relinquished the Port Adelaide captaincy and has found his best form in years. Taylor Walker remained Crows skipper and is being challenged to deliver on the field.

Taylor Walker tries to wrap up North Melbourne’s Ben Brown. Picture: Scott Barbour/Getty Images

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Season 2019 is the tale of two captains in SA football.

The Adelaide Football Club, after long declaring it would never have co-captains, followed the growing AFL trend with multiple skippers by having Rory Sloane share the Crows captaincy with Taylor Walker.

The Port Adelaide Football Club, after 148 years of a lone on-field, broke with tradition by appointing defender Tom Jonas and midfielder Ollie Wines as co-captains to succeed Travis Boak.

After the first month of AFL premiership football, the real storyline is about how two captains faced with the same decision in the summer made differing decisions — and have contrasting form lines.

Former Port Adelaide captain Travis Boak’s call to abdicate from a leadership role at Alberton has given him a new lease of life as a footballer — and his performances in the first month of Season 2019 are career-best figures. Picture: Dave Hunt

Boak stepped down as Power captain after six demanding years in the role. At 30, when many players are written off, Boak has not only returned to a significant role in the Port Adelaide midfield rotations (after being cast in the dead man’s valley of a “high half-forward”) but delivered career-best form.

Boak has — for the first time in his 247-game career — chalked up 30-or-more possessions in four consecutive games. And it was his one-touch work to assist team-mates — moments that are not in the kicks-handball columns of the statistic sheets — that defined his team-best performance for Port Adelaide in the loss to Richmond at Adelaide Oval on Saturday.

By his experiences, Boak remains the best man to lead Port Adelaide. But in abdicating the captaincy — to allow a new leadership group to emerge at Alberton — Boak has noted a release from the mental strain that comes with the captaincy. He is a much-better player for the Power.

And Boak does not need the “c” by his name on the team sheet to still contribute as a leader at Alberton.

Walker held on to the Adelaide captaincy for the fifth year after a series of meetings with coach Don Pyke in the summer.

If Pyke was delivering a hint, Walker did not take it. And this would beg the question why Pyke did not just tell Walker to stand down. Why else did Pyke start the discussion?

If Pyke was asking Walker — after a disappointing 2018 — to consider concentrating on his performances rather than carry the team’s burden on and off the field, Walker’s decision to remain captain appears flawed today.

Crows co-captain Taylor Walker has managed just three goals this season. Picture: Scott Barbour/Getty Images

Walker’s numbers are one thing — four games, three goals and a season averages of 11.75 disposals (marginally better than last year but lower than his count in any of 2012-17) and 4.75 marks.

But it is the image of a key forward who even in the pre-season appeared to be struggling has deepened to reviews noting Walker is too easily pushed out of marking contests and is labouring to make a significant influence the game.

This is despite an off-season in which Walker became leaner (shedding two kilograms, 102 to 100, according to the AFL guide) to be more agile. But his shoulders carry extra weight as captain — even as co-captain — when his form and the team’s form are not living up to grand expectation.

Two captains, two differing destinies and results.

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