Adelaide Crows captain Taylor Walker out of clash against Essendon with ankle injury

AUDIO: Crows captain Taylor Walker is out of Sunday’s twilight AFL clash with wooden-spoon holder Essendon at Adelaide Oval.

Adelaide's doctor checks up on Taylor Walker at Kardinia Park. Picture: George Salpigtidis

NO Taylor Walker - and no plan to belt out a record score against AFL wooden-spooner Essendon to secure the percentage boost that could deliver the Crows a top-four finish.

Adelaide coach Don Pyke is not following his players’ pre-game script of chasing a club record score and winning margin against the lame Bombers - a theme that would have been easier had Walker been cleared of a right-ankle injury.

“We’re not in that head space at all,” said Pyke of the sixth-ranked Crows who fell out of the top-four with a 30-point loss to finals rival Geelong on Saturday night.

“We’re pretty keen to atone for a performance that was not like us,” added Pyke after watching his team held to a season-low 55 points at Kardinia Park.

“We’re going to focus on Essendon,” said Pyke, who scouted the Bombers in their 37-point loss to 17th-ranked Brisbane at Etihad Stadium on Sunday. “And focus on playing our way - and play the system we want to play and take the result whatever that brings.”

Pyke’s attitude contradicts his star players, in particular specialist forward Eddie Betts, who have publicly declared a ruthless intent to turn Essendon into percentage fodder.

“My message certainly won’t be to turn the scoreboard on - it will be, ‘Let’s play our style of footy’ - and do it from the first bounce,” Pyke said. “We will play against the opposition; we will prepare for that opposition and we will focus on how we need to play. That is our process every week.

“There is no easy game in this competition - and Essendon is one of those teams, even if the results do not indicate it, that has been playing really well. They have some real credentials to do some damage - we take nothing lightly.”

Walker at Adelaide Airport after the Crows’ loss to Geelong. Picture: Matt Loxton.

Adelaide last night named a 25-man squad that puts first-year forward Wayne Milera in line to replace Walker. The Crows also are expected to recall Paul Seedsman to replace the injured Ricky Henderson. The preliminary list also includes David Mackay, Reilly O’Brien and Harrison Wigg.

Key defender Daniel Talia, the other major casualty on Saturday night when he sat out the last term with a double-corked hip, will play. The match 22 will be named tonight.

Pyke hopes Walker can resume running at the end of the week and play in next weekend’s home clash with Brisbane.

“That ankle pulled up a bit sorer than we’d hope,” Pyke said. “But we’re hoping it’s only a one-week thing. The information I’m getting from the doctors is we’re hopeful it is going to settle down - and we expect it to be a week.”

Pyke rejects he should purposely rest players after using a league-low 27 this season.

“We will pick best-available teams. We won’t get too cute - there is a risk in doing that,” Pyke said.

Pyke insisted he would have played — rather than rested — Walker had the key forward made it to the training track today.

“We weren’t looking for a rest for him,” said Pyke of Walker, who earlier this year played through a foot injury. “In an ideal world we want all out players playing. I’ve been saying all year, continuity is important. We can clearly manage our players but for me, playing and playing well builds both resilience and confidence. So it is not ideal that (Walker) is not playing this week.

“But, hopefully, we get him back for the following week.”

[e-mail]

Originally published as Adelaide Crows captain Taylor Walker out of clash against Essendon with ankle injury