Crows captain Taylor Walker slammed for ’unacceptable’ effort against West Coast

Crows assistant coach Scott Camporeale has come to the defence of co-captain Taylor Walker after former stars including Nick Riewoldt slammed an ‘embarrassing’ effort on Saturday.

MAN IN THE MIDDLE: Under-fire Crows captain Taylor Walker (centre) trudges from Adelaide Oval after the loss to West Coast, flanked by Rory Atkins (left) and Brad Crouch. Picture: SARAH REED.

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Adelaide assistant coach Scott Camporeale says co-captain Taylor Walker would “like to have his time again” after he was slammed for not going hard enough in a contest against premier West Coast at Adelaide Oval on Saturday.

But Camporeale defended the key forward’s output this season following heavy criticism from former AFL stars Nick Riewoldt and Jude Bolton.

“I think it’s pretty easy from the outside to isolate one instance,” Camporeale said of a second quarter incident where Walker didn’t attack the ball as hard as could have against rival skipper Shannon Hurn.

Taylor Walker remonstrates with the umpire after giving away a free kick against West Coast Eagles at Adelaide Oval on Saturday. Picture: Mark Brake/Getty Images

“Would ‘Tex’ (Walker) like to have his time again, I’d say he probably would.

“But we’ve all been in those situations where we maybe should have gone a little bit harder in that instance and I’m sure Nick would have as well.

“We can’t just isolate one moment as the reason why we lost.

“He would like to have his time again but we move on and have to keep making sure that the level the game requires, we play at.”

Former St Kilda champion forward Riewoldt suggested Walker should not be immune to being dropped to the SANFL because he was co-captain.

But Camporeale said Walker’s form had been strong for a month before he struggled in the 12-point loss to the Eagles.

“I would have thought he was pretty sharp in the past three or four weeks,” he said.

“He turned his form around and has been one of our best forwards.

“He didn’t have a great game on the weekend but that’s the game of footy.”

Camporeale said the Crows hope to have Matt Crouch (adductor), Tom Lynch (hamstring), David Mackay (illness) and Sam Jacobs (knee), who

all missed the West Coast clash, available for Saturday night’s Darwin assignment against Melbourne.

But he said lead ruckman Jacobs was likely to return via the SANFL after being sidelined for two months following knee surgery.

A disappointed Taylor Walker after the loss. Picture SARAH REED

Earlier, Bolton told Channel 7 Walker’s effort was “unacceptable from a club captain”.

“To pull out like that, he’s just got to make a statement for his team and he won’t be looking forward to looking at that footage.’’

Riewoldt, who captained the Saints for 11 years in 2005 and from 2007-16, said Walker needed to apologise to his teammates at the club's game review session on Monday.

“It’s a tough situation, knowing ‘Tex’ (Walker) is a great locker room guy and the players all really love him,’’ five-times All-Australian key forward Riewoldt told SEN SA.

“But the most important role of a captain is to just deliver on great effort, so you can hold the group accountable in terms of what your standards are and if you are not doing that yourself as captain then it’s a really difficult situation to be in.

“I saw St Kilda against Adelaide (in round six) and he was awesome that night in terms of his physicality, we hadn’t seen him flying too much for marks this year, and that was a really impressive performance and just the stamp he had on that game with his physicality was enormous.

“But that (Hurn incident) will be an embarrassing moment for him if it’s brought up in review, particularly as captain of the footy club when you're there to drive the high standards.’’

Riewoldt said Walker should “put your hand up’’ and own up to his mistake in front of his teammates at training on Monday.

“You probably just put your hand up and say, ‘look fellas, I didn’t go hard enough, didn’t attack the footy, I know it’s my job as captain to do that and to drive really high standards and it won’t happen again’,’’ he said.

“I think that’s also really powerful for a captain to be able to do that too because you almost humanise the mistake a little bit and some players will think, ‘well that’s good, if it can happen to ‘Tex’ and he’s our captain, he’s our leader, then it can happen to all of us.

“But he's man enough to take responsibility for it, so I think that’s probably the way you’d go about it.’’

Riewoldt said the fact that Adelaide coach Don Pyke had made strong selection statements this year by dropping key pair Bryce Gibbs and Josh Jenkins had added to the importance of Walker taking ownership of his mistake after the Crows let a 33-point lead slip against the Eagles.

“You wonder whether maybe Jenkins and Gibbs are sitting there thinking, ‘well, if you are going to be true to your word’, there is that element there, so that’s why I think it’s also really important for Tex to get on the front foot with the playing group,’’ Riewoldt said.

Originally published as Crows captain Taylor Walker slammed for ’unacceptable’ effort against West Coast