Crawley Files: The remarkable tale behind South Sydney star Cody Walker’s stunning rise to stardom

Like Cliff Lyons, Cody Walker was a late bloomer. And like the Manly legend, Walker is only getting better and better with age, writes Paul Crawley.

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA – MAY 15: Cody Walker of the Rabbitohs celebrates scoring a try during the round 10 NRL match between the Cronulla Sharks and the South Sydney Rabbitohs at Suncorp Stadium, on May 15, 2021, in Brisbane, Australia. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)

This time a decade ago a young Cody Walker’s rugby league career was clinging to life support.

At the time, he was 21 and travelling a three-hour round trip by train and car just to get to NSW Cup training with the Windsor Wolves.

Fast forward and today the 31-year-old playmaker is on the cusp of becoming South Sydney’s first Dally M winner since Robert “Rocky” Laurie way back in 1980.

And for a bloke who makes playing the game look so ridiculously easy on the field, Walker should also be recognised as the NRL’s poster boy for persistence.

Because this year’s Dally M Medal favourite, who in the estimation of News Corp’s league writers is ahead of both Tom Trbojevic and Nathan Cleary in our count with three rounds of the regular season remaining, has sure travelled a far longer and tougher road than his two younger rivals to be standing where he is today.

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Rabbitohs playmaker Cody Walker would be a popular winner of the Dally M Medal.

It began when he was growing up in the northern NSW town of Casino to playing in a top schoolboys side in 2008 at Palm Beach Currumbin alongside Ryan James and Jordan Rankin.

But while they ended up winning the national comp, Walker was the only one of the trio who missed out on Australian Schoolboys before he was basically shown the door at the Titans after two seasons of under-20s.

Art by Scott “Boo” Bailey.

And while he is now seen as a player who in the coming months will be negotiating to become the game’s next $1 million-a-season player, when he was cutting his teeth at Windsor all those years ago his career was on anything but an easy ride to the top.

Former Wolves assistant coach David Tangata-Toa, who is now in charge of pathways at the Canterbury Bulldogs, conceded: “I’d be lying to you if I said I could have seen him being this good.”

Cody Walker’s journey to favourite for this year’s Dally M Medal is an amazing tale.

Not that Walker wasn’t a talent, Tangata-Toa said. It’s just at that point no one really saw him as the game’s next superstar.

“(Windsor) was obviously the Penrith reserve grade team for a while there and we had Cody Walker’s older brother, Ryan, play for us,” Tangata-Toa recalled.

“Back then, as with most feeder clubs, they would give their best two or three players a pre-season with the top side and Ryan went really well so he ended up playing first grade and Penrith gave him a contract.”

That left Cody to make his own way west. While living with family in the centre of Sydney, he would catch the train from Central to Blacktown, where Tangata-Toa would pick him up for the car ride the rest of the way.

He left the Wolves to try his luck in the Queensland Cup when another opportunity came knocking.

“Cody was playing for Easts in Brisbane, my old club, and he was playing really well,” former South Sydney boss Shane Richardson recalled.

“So I rang Des Morris, who was in charge of Easts at the time.

“I’d heard all the rumours (the good and the bad) and so I said, ‘What do you think?’

“And Des said, ‘I think he’s a gem’.

Fiercely proud of his heritage, Walker poses with sons Kian and Kade during the Indigenous Round last season.

“He said he’s got to prove it in the big games, because they’d lost a grand final. “I think it was that year Cody was out for half the season and still won The Courier-Mail’s best-and-fairest.”

And after missing out on making his debut for the Melbourne Storm (from their feeder team Easts), Walker took up the chance to come to Souths on what was then an NRL minimum contract worth just $60,000. He was 24.

Richardson admits he thought Walker would just be a good back-up for Adam Reynolds and Luke Keary because he could play half or five-eighth.

“But when we lost Luke Keary, he got his chance and he has never looked back.”

After debuting in the NRL at age 26, it has just been an extraordinary ride since.

Which brings us to this weekend.

Heading into Friday night’s head-to-head showdown with fellow Dally M contender Cleary, Walker could well be on the verge of securing his place in rugby league history alongside Laurie after a four-decade wait.

Walker during his time with Melbourne Storm feeder team Easts Tigers in Brisbane.

On our count from our journalists submitting their 3-2-1 votes since round 12, when the official count went behind closed doors, Walker is on 33 points with Trbojevic on 30 and Cleary on 25.

Walker could wrap it up with a man-of-the-match performance against Cleary’s Panthers — especially if Turbo doesn’t take the field in the opening Friday game when the Manly tackles Canberra.

Fox Sports Stats shows Walker has notched up the most linebreak assists on record, with 51 and counting.

And his 34 try assists in 20 games also has him on target to eclipse former Parramatta halfback Tim Smith’s record of 40, set in 2005 from 26 games.

His perseverance could secure him the most inspiring journey our game has seen in a long, long time.

Walker joins his extended family on the sidelines for a photograph opportunity.

Only last weekend Wayne Bennett went as far as to say on the Fox NRL coverage that if he was picking his greatest team he has coached, he would have to find a spot for Cody somewhere.

That is an incredible statement when you consider that Bennett’s has the likes of Wally Lewis, Darren Lockyer and Kevvie Walters as his No. 6 contenders.

On top of that, those at Souths reckon you wouldn’t meet a more committed club man or family man.

While he often comes across as a bit of a hothead on the field, they reckon away from the cameras you would not meet a more devoted father to his two little boys Kian and Kade.

And no one at the club does more in the community than the Rabbitohs’ nominee for this year’s Ken Stephen’s Medal.

Walker has often been likened to Cliff Lyons in the way he plays. So I asked Cliffy this week what he thought about watching Cody play.

Walker sweetly offloads to Dane Gagai despite pressure from his Dragons opponents in Round 20 this year.

The old Manly maestro explained it beautifully.

“In the position we play, we need to be unpredictable, so we can’t be predictable, if you know what I mean,” Lyons said.

By that, Cliffy was saying that they work you out pretty quickly in the NRL if you are a one-trick pony. And if you don’t change it up, you just won’t survive.

Like Cody, Cliffy was also a late bloomer, debuting at Norths when he was 23 in 1985. Yet he went on to win two Dally M Medals in 1990 and 1994, the last when he was nearly 33.

Cliffy ended up playing in the ARL competition until 1999, when he was approaching his 38th birthday.

The naturally gifted Walker looks like he could go on forever, too. Contracted until 2022, Walker’s agent has indicated they won’t move forward with any negotiations until Souths’ season is finished.

While the Rabbitohs refused to budge on offering Reynolds a long-term agreement at the same age, there’s no way they can afford to let Walker also leave on the back of that decision.

Certainly not if he becomes the Rabbitohs’ first Dally M Medal winner in 41 long years.