{"id":40169,"date":"2021-03-01T20:16:12","date_gmt":"2021-03-01T21:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=40169"},"modified":"2021-03-02T05:59:49","modified_gmt":"2021-03-02T05:59:49","slug":"crows-not-rushing-walker-towards-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=40169","title":{"rendered":"Crows not rushing Walker towards retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adelaide<\/a> coach Matthew Nicks says the club is in no rush to push ex-captain Taylor Walker<\/a> towards retirement, despite selecting Riley Thilthorpe in the draft. <\/p>\n

After a dismal season in 2020, the Crows chose the agile 200 cm ruck\/forward with the No.2 pick in the draft, with the young gun already earning rave reviews<\/a> around the league.<\/p>\n

With Adelaide embarking on a youth movement, Walker's future has been heavily debated, but Nicks is adamant that he still has a role to play at the club.<\/p>\n

"If a younger player who is 18 is good enough to push Tex out, then goodness me we'd be silly not to play that kid," Nicks told 3AW's Sportsday.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Taylor<\/p>\n

"At the moment that's not happening. Tex is 30 years old, he's not 32 or 33 or 34."<\/p>\n

While Walker's best days may be behind him, Nicks said there was still an opportunity for the club's all-time leading goalkicker to add to his legacy.<\/p>\n

"I hope a Riley Thilthorpe, for example, is able to lift his game to a standard where he goes past Tex," Nicks added.<\/p>\n

"And (then) Tex is happy to say 'you know what, I did a fair bit of work on developing this young kid', and he can leave a legacy.<\/p>\n

"I expect him to play as many games as we possibly can with him."<\/p>\n

\"Riley<\/p>\n

Walker managed to kick just 15 goals in 14 games last season, but Nicks conceded that the 30-year-old is still the club's best forward.<\/p>\n

"Our conversations have been around 'mate, you make it hard for these kids, I don't want to gift them any games,'" he said.<\/p>\n

"We're not going to gift games, they have got to earn their spot.<\/p>\n

"At the moment, he's our best forward. He's performing really well, he's crashing in, he's competing." <\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong>For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks says the club is in no rush to push ex-captain Taylor Walker towards retirement, despite selecting Riley Thilthorpe in the draft. […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40169"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40169"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40171,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40169\/revisions\/40171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}