The Sam Walker files: Why the NRL’s greatest minds love this one-man mystery

Ben Walker confirms the rare ambidexterity.

“His handwriting is atrocious, but he writes left-handed,” he says. “Then when he plays cricket, he bowls and throws right-handed, which helps with his grubber kicks, because it means he’s guiding the ball down with his left hand.”

Luke Keary, meanwhile, enjoyed the same vantage point as Cherry-Evans, and Cooper Cronk offered a guiding hand when Walker first arrived at the club as a schoolboy prodigy.

Keary speaks the same way as Cherry-Evans about Walker.

“Ninety-five per cent of kids that come into the NRL are shaped by their junior system and a lot of that looks very, very similar to first grade – the same overall shapes and principles anyway,” he says.

“So Sammy arrives with this different outlook and, yeah, it takes him time to adapt, but I think that’s why he succeeded straight away for Queensland in Origin. Origin is built on those big moments and the quicker and bigger the game gets, then the better he goes, because he’s a bit different to most halves.”

Cronk’s comments as Roosters halves consultant a day after Walker’s SCG debut ring true five years and 106 games later. Particularly given the No.7’s absence was so keenly felt in the Tricolours’ week one finals loss to Penrith, when they were held scoreless from the 24th minute, despite Nathan Cleary being sent to the sin bin.

After an 18-year-old Walker carved up the Warriors in 2021, Cronk told Fox Sports’ NRL360 he had “nothing to do” with the teen tyro’s rise.

“The only 5 per cent that I’m going to work with [him on] is some strategy around why he runs. If he can understand why he ran or threw that pass, then you’ve got a player,” Cronk said.

“To be a dominant halfback you’ve got to be creative for yourself first before creating for other people, so your eyes have got to go see what’s in front of you – is there something for me?

“The eyes will tell you what to do, and then your instincts take off on the back of that.”

Five years on from Cronk’s prescient words, the Roosters need Walker’s instinctive brilliance more than ever. Even if, as the champion playmakers explain and enthuse, there’s so much to his game than just impulse and aptitude.

The backdrop of his month-long recovery from ankle surgery, paused $6 million contract talks, Cherry-Evans’ looming NRL swansong and the ubiquitous spotlight that come with a glamour club are all just fruit for the sideboard.

Because as Johns says: “Sometimes all you can do is just sit back and wonder. How on earth did Sam Walker just do that?”

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