Retirement season has arrived, the annual late-winter period when the AFL caravan slows for just long enough to reflect on who – and what – the game is about to lose. When the stars of the show and ageing fan favourites take one last turn in the spotlight, and when unsung heroes have a rare chance to step out of the shadows.
Triumphs and accolades are recalled from the record books. Career statistics are mined for hidden gems. Highlight reels are picked over for forgotten moments of brilliance. Setbacks are seen as all part of the journey, while misdemeanours are laughed off as youthful exuberance and more serious indiscretions are relabelled as opportunities for personal growth.
Taylor Walker has had an AFL career filled with many of the typical highs and lows. He has won matches off his own boot, sustained serious injuries, endured form slumps and made an off-field mistake that can’t help but cloud his legacy. He also helped guide his club and teammates through an unimaginable tragedy.
The numbers speak for themselves. Walker spent 19 years with the club he had obsessed over as a boy. He has played 316 matches in 18 seasons with the opportunity to run out for a handful more depending on how deep the Crows go in this year’s finals series. He is the club’s leading goalkicker with 706 goals – the second-most of all current players and the 27th most in VFL/AFL history.
The 36-year-old’s honours include being Adelaide captain between 2015 and 2019 and leading the side into the 2017 grand final. He was named in the All Australian side for the first time, aged 33, after booting a career-high 76 goals in 2023.
Walker was highly touted after being selected as Adelaide’s first NSW scholarship player at the age of 16, but was made to bide his time under coach Neil Craig before earning a debut in round one of 2009. He enjoyed a breakout season in 2012, kicking 63 goals in 19 matches to top the Crows’ goalkicking, but ruptured an anterior cruciate ligament early the next year. He returned just over 12 months later and was appointed club captain by new coach Phil Walsh ahead of the 2015 season.
Adelaide’s shock defeat to Richmond in the 2017 decider, the ill-advised “Power Stance” that preceded it and the off-season team camp that followed, threw the club off course for almost a decade. Walker and the Crows have played in only two finals since then – both losses on home turf last year that knocked the minor premiers out in straight sets. The boy from Broken Hill battled back issues and knee soreness through a career-worst campaign in 2020 that he expected would be his last. He booted a mere 15 goals in 14 games as the Crows claimed their first wooden spoon. A career renaissance with 48 goals in 17 matches the next year came to an abrupt halt when Walker was handed a six-week ban for racial vilification.
The case rocked the industry when a much-admired player, who had stood tall as a leader during the most difficult circumstances six years earlier, admitted to using a racist slur when watching a state league game with a teammate. The awkward apology video, with Walker seated alongside the player he had targeted, suggested the Crows veteran still had much to learn.
The rite of passage for retiring stars includes an emotional farewell in front of teammates and then the media. Walker followed the usual path, until his press conference at club headquarters had to be moved to a larger room as club staff and players joined the pack to hear what one of the most-loved players in Crows history had to say on his first steps out the door.
Among the usual celebrations, jokes, jibes and lump-in-the-throat theatre, he reflected on his offensive comment in August 2021 that remains a stain on his career. “The biggest thing that I learnt was that words don’t just hurt one person, they can hurt so many different people,” Walker said. “I feel like I’m a better person for that mistake that I made. It’s one thing that I wish never happened, but also I feel like I’m in a position that I’m better for it.”
A lasting image of Walker is his textbook ball grip and kicking action, whether lining up for a booming set shot or when using either foot for a pinpoint pass further up the field. But the most enduring memory is of the strength and vulnerability he showed after Walsh’s death, when leading his grief-stricken teammates and the wider club into their next game against Port Adelaide, and in the weeks and months that followed.
Walker’s longevity, despite his battles with injury, form slumps and even self-inflicted wounds, is reason enough to remember him for his persistence and perseverance. But his resilience and leadership in the aftermath of Walsh’s death – when the coach was killed by his mentally ill son – is how Walker should be remembered and celebrated as one of a kind.
This is an extract from Guardian Australia’s free weekly AFL email, From the Pocket. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions
