Angus emailed the Roosters at 17, begging for a game. Now for a grand final swansong

The email from Angus Crichton’s high school account, complete with a Scots College domain name, is long gone, lost to wherever things get lost on the internet.

Peter O’Sullivan, the Roosters’ then-recruitment chief who had the schoolboy rugby centre’s highlights package arrive in his inbox, has, of late, overseen Newcastle’s roster rebuild from wooden-spooners to grand finalists.

That email has been followed by Crichton playing more than 200 NRL games, 17 Origins, 11 Tests, and winning a premiership, over 12 years. A second title may be days away.

“I had put together a highlights package of my union games but was out injured with nerve damage in my neck, so was pretty bored and annoyed, and I got Peter O’Sullivan’s email off [ex-South Sydney winger] Taane Milne,” Crichton says.

“I just wrote to the Chooks and said, ‘I’m keen to play S.G. Ball’. I wasn’t looking for a deal or even to train or anything; I just wanted a game of footy, as you do when you’re a kid.

“I ended up playing in a fair S.G. Ball team with Joey Manu, Latrell [Mitchell], Connor Watson, Paul Momirovski and a lot of other talented players, and did a pre-season. I didn’t really know [rugby] league at all; all I had played was rugby [union] and, at that age, I was just stoked to get a pair of proper Roosters shorts with the logo on them.”

Crichton didn’t know much in the way of NRL club etiquette nor care much, either. And as he lines up alongside one of his closest friends for one last grand-final hurrah, before making that long-coming return to rugby with the 2027 World Cup in mind, he can point to a wonderful memento that neatly sums up his Roosters career in two photos.

“There’s a photo of me and Daniel Tupou from that summer. I went straight up to him; he’d just won the [2013] grand final the previous season,” Crichton says, grinning.

“I got a photo with him, and it’s Toops, of course – he was a legend about it. But one of the boys was like, ‘mate, you can’t just walk up to the first-graders and ask for photos’. Now I’ve played so many games with him, and I was here for his 300th. It’s just crazy.”

Wilder still, despite Crichton making the first move on the Roosters, is that it was Michael Maguire and Greg Inglis who wooed him across Anzac Parade to make his NRL debut.

Maguire saw a serious first-grader in Crichton, told him as much, and rolled out the cardinal and myrtle carpet (as well as Inglis) to get him. The Waratahs, meanwhile, told him he would probably have to wait until his early 20s to earn a Super Rugby debut.

By that time, Crichton had played 55 games for the Rabbitohs, having made his debut shortly after his 20th birthday. Trent Robinson and the Roosters had come calling and brought him back to Bondi on a multimillion-dollar deal that set the game’s fiercest rivals into yet another public squabble about Crichton’s alleged price tag.

His first season back at the Tricolours brought the 2019 premiership.

Robinson, like Tupou, owner Nick Politis, club matriarch Cath King and a few others, has been a constant throughout Crichton’s time in red, white and blue.

“Robbo’s challenged me the whole way when I’ve needed to be challenged, and looked after me when I’ve needed to be looked after,” Crichton says.

“There [have been] times when I’ve had to fight for my spot. Times when I’ve had to fight for a contract. And that’s how it should be. That’s just part and parcel of playing for the Roosters.”

Which is a long way from that bullish schoolboy emailing recruitment bosses and bouncing first-graders for photos, looking for a game and a pair of shorts.

Crichton has been and will still be commendably open on how he manages his mental health after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which prompted him to seek treatment and step away from the NRL for the first half of 2024.

And with the Waratahs and Wallabies literally across the road and figuratively around the corner, and a farewell Roosters premiership just 80 minutes away, there’s so much to look back on, and even more to look towards.

“I look at all the hours of work and sacrifice,” Crichton says.

“Back then it was all just potential. It’s hard work, and the people you surround yourself with, that’s what gives you opportunity. I owe so much to my family – my mum and dad, my sisters and my wife, and all the sacrifices we’ve all made.

“And I am proud of myself and what I’ve achieved as a Roosters player. There’s a bit more to achieve yet, though.”

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