ADELAIDE skipper Nathan van Berlo has questioned whether players and umpires sit on the same page after teammate Taylor Walker's three-game suspension.

The in-form Walker was offered a three-game sanction with an early guilty plea on Tuesday for a reckless tackle on Richmond's Steven Morris.

Morris was dumped on his head in the tackle but Walker won a free kick from umpire Shane McInerney, who penalised Morris for holding the ball.

Van Berlo said the incident highlighted the uncertainty of the rules and interpretation.

"The weekend is the perfect example of players and maybe even umpires not too sure on where the line is," van Berlo said.

"He (Walker) gets awarded a free kick and gets a shot at goal for what seemed to be a fairly aggressive tackle, but one that was deemed at the time to be within the rules.

"I daresay the AFL's going to keep looking at ways to try and make the rule there clearer but, at the moment, players just have to be aware that tackles are going to be heavily scrutinised."

Walker has long been urged to change his tackling technique, with his tendency to 'dump' players into the turf catching him out on several occasions in the past few seasons.

He was suspended for two games for a tackle on Geelong's Harry Taylor in round 12 and was suspended for a game in the SANFL last season for another sling tackle.

However, Walker's captain said in the high-octane environment of a match, instinct takes over.

"You go out there in an aggressive frame of mind, every player does, to make sure they hit the contest hard," van Berlo said.

"They tackle aggressively and, I guess, when you get someone gripped in a tackle your natural instinct is to wrap them up and make the tackle stick.

"Probably Taylor doesn't realise how strong he is sometimes."

Meanwhile, former Crows captain Chris McDermott took to Twitter to urge his former club to appeal the match review panel's verdict.



McDermott was also critical of the disparity between Walker's three-match ban for the tackle on Morris, and Saint Brendon Goddard's two-match penalty for a hit behind play on North Melbourne's Sam Wright.



Richmond legend Kevin Bartlett, who sits on the AFL's rules committee, said the match review panel's responsibility was clear.



Walker's suspension, if accepted, will see the key forward miss Saturday night's Showdown against the Power, next week's game against GWS and the Crows' blockbuster clash against West Coast in round 17.

Despite conceding his team would miss the forward, who has booted 37 goals already this season, van Berlo said several attacking options could be used to ensure Walker's absence doesn't result in losses.

"He's obviously been in great form for us and one of our key targets up forward, so it'll be a huge loss," he said.

"We've got a number of options that we can certainly toy with this weekend … we've seen Josh Jenkins and Shaun McKernan play up forward as talls and Chris Knights adds another bit of versatility to the side.

"There are a number of different structures we can go with."

Harry Thring covers Adelaide news for AFL.com.au. Follow him on Twitter: @AFL_Harry