Five months ago Angus Crichton and Cody Walker were at each other’s throats but the pair have been united by a common passion.
The tone was set for Friday night’s local derby between the Sydney Roosters and South Sydney during their NRL round one meeting when firebrand five-eighth Walker labelled his former teammate a “traitor”.
Roosters half Cooper Cronk had a heated on-field confrontation with Walker and with that the fuse was lit for Crichton.
“I’m excited, ever since that game in round one I’ve had round 25 circled on my calendar, I’m excited to rip back into those boys. I have a lot of great mates that play for that team, I’ve got a love for that club,” Crichton said.
But to say there’s bad blood between Crichton and Walker is off the mark.
They were NSW teammates during State of Origin I this year but had mended their fences before that.
Crichton said he would be “trying to run over” Walker during their clash.
But he also insisted that the traitor sledge had not affected him having actually copped worse from Walker when they were Rabbitohs teammates.
“I remember when we were training, when we were doing opposed sessions he’d try to fight me,” Crichton said
“I think that’s just him as a person.”
And in a sign of their friendship, Walker has agreed to come on board as an ambassador for Crichton’s charity the First People Project, which is due to launch the week after the grand final.
Crichton is an energetic advocate for indigenous people and for the last four years has made an annual trip to Arnhem Land in remote Northern Territory.
After forming a bond with two Arnhem community members, Leon and Dewlyn Wunungmurra, at high school, it has become a passion project to highlight and uplift indigenous communities.
The role of the charity is two-fold – to showcase indigenous culture, which he says most Australians take for granted, and to help out young indigenous kids adapt to life in big cities if they attend boarding schools.
Crichton said that racism was still prevalent in Australian society and he was inspired to start his charity because he wanted to educate and build bridges.
“As I’ve seen with Latrell (Mitchell, who has been the subject of racist abuse on social media), there’s still racism in Australia,” Crichton said.
“I don’t think it’s something that I’m comfortable with or any Australian should be comfortable with.
“A lot of these people who are being racist, they’re not educated and the way we’re going to change that is through educating people.
“A lot of Australia is quite blind to how beautiful and rare and lucky we are to have this indigenous culture within this country.”