Adelaide veteran Taylor Walker says he is still unsure about his playing future, following his 18th AFL season coming to an end on Friday night.
Walker, who signed a one-year contract ahead of the 2025 season, was part of the Crows team that was eliminated by Hawthorn in Friday night’s semi-final.
Speaking to Roo, Ditts and Loz on Triple M Adelaide Breakfast, Walker said emotions were still running high after the loss, and he would take time to make an informed decision on his future.
“I’m not sure to be honest, I’m still quite emotional about Friday night,” Walker said.
“I will sit on it for a little bit, I’ve got my exit review today so I’ll have a good chat with Nicksy and the coaches and Burgo (Darren Burgess) and we’ll make that decision in due time.
“Hopefully time will allow me to make that decision, time with Ellie, with the guys I really trust and once I withdraw myself from the emotion of everything it will become really clear to me.”
The disappointment of Adelaide’s finals campaign was still quite raw for Walker and his teammates four days on from the Hawthorn clash.
He said while it was frustrating to fall short of expectations, the improvement the group experienced in rising 15th in 2024 to minor premiers in 2025 should not be understated.
“The boys are still quite flat, personally it was one of the most emotional games I’ve been involved in for a very long time,” Walker said.
“Afterwards it was just a really weird feeling in the locker room, and I think that was off the back of the high expectations we had for ourselves internally that we could go on for an extra couple of weeks.
“That made the way we finished across the past two weeks super disappointing for us, but if you asked me at the start of the year after finishing 15th would you take coming fifth and playing two finals.
“I would have said yes, albeit it’s a bitter taste in the mouth to finish the way we did in the two finals.”
As for what the group took out of the past fortnight, Walker said there was a plethora of learnings that would help drive the group into 2025 and beyond.
“I thought we didn’t win enough of the footy through our midfield, and then ahead of the ball and behind the ball I think we got beaten,” Walker said.
“If you don’t win enough of your contested footy, it makes it really hard to win the game, you need to transition the ball from your back half and score off of turnover, which we’ve been pretty good at all year.
“But when you play really good sides in the finals they just don’t allow you to do that, and we just weren’t able to kick a winning score to help us win the game.
“We learn, we galvanise as a group and look forward to having a look at how we get better, and we’ll just need to get fitter and stronger over summer and look forward to putting ourselves in a position to have another crack.”
