Adelaide news 2022: Wayne Milera opens up on the damage done at club by Taylor Walker’s racial slur

Wayne Milera was the first Crow to detail the damage caused by Taylor Walker’s racial slur. The key forward has responded ahead of Indigenous round.

Kieran Strachan will get an extended run for the Crows. Picture: Getty Images

Veteran Taylor Walker is hoping his racial vilification transgression does not become the focus of Adelaide’s Sir Doug Nicholls Round match.

Nine months on from receiving a six-game ban for his slur to North Adelaide’s Robbie Young, Walker is continuing to work hard on repairing relationships with his four Indigenous teammates.

Wayne Milera on Monday became the first of them to speak publicly about the matter, ahead of the Crows’ Indigenous Round home game against St Kilda on Saturday night.

Milera called Walker’s indiscretion very disappointing and said his relationship with the former captain had been damaged, but that he was now comfortable around him at the club.

Walker told Channel 7 he still had work to do.

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Wayne Milera spoke out about how Taylor Walker’s racial slur affected him. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

And he praised Milera for opening up about how the Indigenous contingent was affected.

“I do feel a little bit uneasy,” Walker said.

“I think over the period of time since what’s happened, I think relationships are starting to get built but I understand that it’s still going to take a little bit of time.

“I feel like they’ve forgiven a little bit, which is personally great for me.

“But I also understand that there’s still a lot of things I’ve got to do to continue to build that relationship and trust back.”

Walker took time away from the club after he was suspended in August before returning for the first day of pre-season.

Adelaide’s all-time leading goalkicker made his on-field comeback against Essendon in Round 4 and had since played the next five games.

He has booted 17.9 from his six matches this year.

Indigenous Crow breaks silence on damaged Tex relationship

— Simeon Thomas-Wilson

Adelaide Indigenous player Wayne Milera says his relationship with Taylor Walker was damaged after the former Crows captain admitted to using a racial slur at a SANFL game.

But Milera said he was comfortable with Walker being back at the club following the former captain’s apology.

“Obviously it was pretty tough and it was very disappointing from my end, a senior figure at the club doing that,” Milera said on Monday at the AFL’s launch of the Sir Doug Nicholls Round.

“And (it was) someone you look up to so it was very disappointing.”

Adelaide’s most senior Indigenous player Wayne Milera played a key role in the healing process at West Lakes.

Milera — a proud Narungga nation, Gunditjmara and Wotjobaluk man — became the first Crows Indigenous player to speak about Walker’s six-game suspension for racially vilifying North Adelaide’s Robbie Young while he was a spectator at a SANFL game in July.

Walker said last year that he needed to repair his relationships with his Indigenous teammates — Milera, Shane McAdam, Ben Davis and Tariek Newchurch.

Walker joined Milera and Indigenous teammates on a trip to Port Augusta last year as part of his vow to better himself.

“It was always going to take time, you take a long time to build a relationship and when something like that happens it damages that relationship,” Milera said.

“So it is not going to be fixed all of a sudden. He has done his apology and said sorry to us, he said sorry to the club.”

Milera said he was comfortable with Walker at West Lakes.

“Yeah I’m comfortable with him at the club,” he said.

“I can’t tell you how long it took but it definitely did take some time to be comfortable.”

The most senior Indigenous player on the Crows list with 63 games, Milera played a key role in the process.

“I was definitely open to being involved in it, it was a full on time and pretty stressful but to be able to voice your feelings to him and voice the feelings of the community that was coming to me he got the idea of how we were feeling,” he said.

“Obviously I didn’t wish it did happen.”

On top of his suspension Walker also had to pay $20,000 to a South Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander charity and undergo education.

Taylor Walker joined Milera and Indigenous teammates on a trip to Port Augusta last year as part of his vow to better himself.

AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan said he was happy with how the whole situation had been handled.

“Yeah people have had a lot to say about it,” he said.

“It is a model that puts the victim at the centre of it and Tanya (Hosch, the AFL’s general manager inclusion and social policy) was involved in the reconciliation process and there has been a sanction and the broader process that has played out, it is actually about reconciling and I feel like that has played out here.

“We followed the process to the letter and that process was informed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

“So people who have views on it from the outside need to understand that.”

After playing in Round 1, following nearly two years on the sidelines with a foot injury and then a ruptured patella tendon, Milera has been in the SANFL.

He said he was hopeful of a return to the AFL soon.

“I’m just waiting … I’m building some form in the SANFL,” he said.

“I’ve been out of the game for a long time, nearly two years so it is just good to be playing footy.”

He said if he was called on this week to take on St Kilda on Saturday night, his body was ready.

“I’m more than confident,” he said.

Extended spell looms for axed ruckman

Adelaide senior assistant coach Scott Burns says the Crows want to give Kieran Strachan “a good three to four weeks” as their No. 1 ruckman.

Strachan played his first game of the season against Brisbane on Saturday after the Crows decided to axe leadership group member Reilly O’Brien following some poor form.

The 26-year-old had six disposals and 21 hit-outs against the Lions.

Burns said the plan was to give Strachan a good run as Adelaide’s No. 1 ruck, and the Crows would resist trying to play him and O’Brien together.

“We’d love to give Strachanie as much as a go as possible so he does spend 80 per cent of the game in the ruck,” he said on SEN SA.

Kieran Strachan is going to get an extended run for the Crows. Picture: Getty Images

“Not saying we will pick two (rucks) or not, but I think (Elliott) Himmelberg is actually a good second ruckman.

“And long term we know that Riley (Thilthorpe) will be a very good follow up ruckman as he progresses his career.”

Burns said the Crows were still trying to get the balance right of giving young and fringe players a sustained run in the team.

“At this stage we have to give Strachanie a good three to four weeks of good football. See how he goes and make him the No. 1 man,” he said.

“It also helps us probably keep some of those younger forwards in that we need as well.”

Burns said the Crows want to get Thilthorpe back into the AFL side but his knee injury and then going down with Covid-19 had interrupted their previous plan for the No. 2 draft pick.

“He needs to play as many AFL games as he can for the rest of the year,” he said.

Jordon Butts will be out of Covid-19 isolation on Saturday morning and will be in a race to take on St Kilda at Adelaide Oval on Saturday night.

“There will certainly be no risk,” he said.

Originally published as Adelaide news 2022: Wayne Milera opens up on the damage done at club by Taylor Walker’s racial slur