Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks says former skipper Taylor Walker is not ready to relinquish his position as the Crows’ spearhead yet.
Walker played 14 games and kicked 15 goals in 2020, his lowest tally since 2013 when he ruptured his ACL five rounds into the season.
The Crows selected key forward Riley Thilthorpe with the second pick in the National Draft, and the local boy kicked four goals in a reserves practice match at the weekend.
“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 explained on Sportsday.
“At the moment that’s not happening. Tex is 30 years old, he’s not 32 or 33 or 34.”
Nicks said Walker has repeated his strong training form of the previous summer, despite the difficulties of the pandemic-affected season in between.
“Our conversations have been around ‘mate, you make it hard for these kids, I don’t want to gift them any games,'" Nicks asserted.
"We’re not going to gift games, they have got to earn their spot.
“At the moment, he’s our best forward. He’s performing really well, he’s crashing in, he’s competing.
“(However) it’s going to be an interesting season, whether we need to manage him at points, that’s what a lot of clubs do with 30-year-old plus players.”
Thilthorpe could feature in Adelaide’s AAMI Community Series fixture against Port Adelaide on Sunday, in an audition for an opening round spot.
Walker has lined up with other key pillars such as Kurt Tippett and Josh Jenkins throughout his career, so Thilthorpe could potentially learn from the Crows’ all-time leading goalkicker on the job.
“I hope a Riley Thilthorpe, for example, is able to lift his game to a standard where he goes past Tex,” Nicks said.
“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.
“I expect him to play as many games as we possibly can with him.”
Adelaide will take on their Showdown rivals at Noarlunga Oval at 3:40pm local time on Sunday, in their only official match of the pre-season.