By Jon Geddes

EASTWOOD hooker Ed Craig leads his teammates in prayers before the game – and then in the boatrace afterwards.

Besides displaying his value to the Woodies by scoring four tries in last Sunday’s 54-20 semi-final win over Manly, Craig also has the role of club chaplain.

The 27-year- old forward, who will again be a key man for the Woodies in Saturday’s final against Randwick at North Sydney Oval, is one those special footballers who makes as big a contribution off the field as he does on it.   

“I’m a devout Christian,” said Craig, who is also the assistant head of Christian Studies at Shore school in North Sydney.

“I lead the prayers before the game each week,” he said. “In the period when we come back from warm-up and we are putting the jerseys on, we literally say ‘anyone who wants to pray, come to this corner’. And you never know who is going to join in.

“It is kind of natural, when I was at the Rebels and the Reds blokes would do a little prayer pre-game and I thought that was a pretty cool thing and so we started doing that at Eastwood,” he said.

And Craig revealed that after fulltime there is another ritual that he really likes to enjoy with his teammates.

“I am a big fan of the post-match boatrace and am a regular on the Eastwood boatrace team,” he said.           

TAKING CARE OF TEAMMATES

AS chaplain Craig offers a sympathetic ear to any Woodies’ player who may have an issue they may want to discuss without any judgement.

“To be honest, the biggest part of the role is blokes who wrap their whole lives and their identity around rugby,” he told Rugby News. “When they then get injuries, it’s pretty tough for them.

“A lot of the role is just speaking to those guys, checking in on them and making sure they are doing OK – and try to make sure they don’t feel like they have been forgotten by rugby.

“And the fellas know I am here to chat if anyone wants to talk about religion or anything more.”

He added quite modestly: “It’s not a big deal, I do what I can for some of the boys who might get overlooked otherwise.”

THE TRY THIEF

WHILE it was some feat for a hooker to score four tries in a game, Craig played down his  achievement last weekend.

“If anything, it makes me feel a bit guilty or selfish,” Craig admitted. “The boys have started calling me the try thief.

“It is hard to claim when every single one of them was a maul try. It’s not really anything to do with my effort, it’s the secondrowers and the props up the front doing the hard yards.”

 THE GREEN MACHINE CHALLENGE

CRAIG said that win over Manly was good preparation for the Randwick clash.

“We went into the game knowing the result didn’t really have much of a bearing and we were going to make the finals regardless,” he said. “It’s still definitely good to have a bit of a confidence boost.”

Woodies’ coach Ben Batger said his team is starting to show some consistency, winning their last three games leading into the showdown with the Galloping Greens.        

“All roads are pointing progression for us,” he said. “That’s always been the plan to peak around this time of year.

“And we’ll need to go to another level when we play Randwick on Saturday.”

Batger described Randwick as obviously the form side in the competition.

“They are really a lethal attacking team and I think their defence is really underrated,” he said. “I’m expecting they are going to move the ball around quite a bit.”       

THE BATTLER’S SWANSONG

A PREMIERSHIP win would be a fitting finale for Craig as this is his last hurrah as a Shute Shield player.

“I’ve had a really good time in rugby, it’s taken me to some cool places and given me some cool experiences,” said Craig, who has had stints at the Reds, Force and Waratahs.

“I’ve really got nothing left to prove in rugby and work gets a bit busier.”

As if he didn’t already have a full dance card, Craig can also add being an assistant boarding house master at Shore to his list.

Craig has been a great servant to Eastwood and his presence will be missed in 2024.

“He is a very generous guy with his time, he’s a really important part of the club,” Batger said.   

It is a measure of Craig’s character that he will slip away without any great fanfare and move onto the next chapter of his life.

“I’m just a battler who has had about enough,” he said with a chuckle.