Adelaide forward Taylor Walker has praised Tom Doedee for putting his body on the line in the Crows’ clash with Essendon, saying you can’t take courage out of the defender’s game. 

Walker was sidelined for the Bombers game after suffering a neck injury in Round 16 but watched his side from home. 

He gave Triple M’s Roo & Ditts some tongue-in-cheek advice for Doedee, who took a big hit from Essendon full forward Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti. 

“It was bloody courageous wasn’t it… it was a bit silly courageous,” Walker said of the collision.

“Tom plays at centre half-back and he says he wasn’t too sure there was a full forward leading out of full forward.”

“I might sit down and teach him the positions on the ground again.”

But when asked whether he’d advise Doedee to back away from the contest, Walker said he wouldn’t change a thing. 

“I’d never take (courage) away from Tom’s game,” Walker said. 

“He puts his body on the line every single week and that’s in his DNA - I’d never tell him to pick and choose when he does it.”

Walker acknowledged Adelaide’s disappointing scoreline on Friday, but said the side would fight to return to its better form. 

“Obviously for our footy Club it was a couple of steps back in our development and progression this year,” he said. 

“We’ll have a review today and I reckon Nicksy (Matthew Nicks) will go quite hard and firm, as he’s well within his rights to.

“We want to finish the year off like we started it. We’ve played some really, really good footy but under the bright lights on Friday night we were disappointing.

“She’s a big game on Sunday afternoon. We want to bounce back and beat the West Coast Eagles.”

Adelaide will take on West Coast at 4.10pm ACST (4.40pm AEST) at Adelaide Oval, with tickets on sale now through Ticketek.