Taylor Walker is preparing to play his first AFL game since the racism saga that rocked the Adelaide Crows’ 2021 campaign.
In August, Walker was found to have targeted Indigenous SANFL player Robbie Young with a racist comment at a game in July last year.
Walker was ordered to donate $20,000 to an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Program in South Australia and suspended for six matches following the incident.
The former Crows captain subsequently apologised to Young in a video uploaded online.
On the field, the saga proved the final nail in the coffin for the Crows, who finished 15th in Matthew Nicks’ second season in charge.
Walker served the final game of his suspension last week and both Nicks and Crows midfielder Rory Laird hinted following round 3 that he could return to face Essendon on Sunday.
“I think ‘Texan’ should come back in, I don’t see why he wouldn’t, he’s done a stack of training and a stack of weights, and you know he’s completely fit, and his body is fresh, so I don’t see why he shouldn’t play,” Laird told SEN.
On Wednesday, the Crows made it official and announced Walker would play his first game in more than eight months this weekend.
Walker’s return is set to create a selection headache for the Crows; both Elliott Himmelberg and Lachlan Gollant kicked four goals in last week’s Showdown defeat of Port Adelaide and will be unlucky to miss out on selection.
“With Tex coming back in, you’d think he comes into the team, but for Himmelberg and Gollant and (Darcy) Fogxjmtzywarty to stand up today, it makes that decision an interesting one for us this week,” Nicks said after the game.
The Crows have the chance to record back-to-back wins for the first time in almost a year when they meet the down-and-out Dons at Marvel Stadium.
Essendon is one of only three teams yet to win a game in 2022, the others being the underwhelming Power and the Covid-ravaged West Coast Eagles.
