Petone: Greg Walker

Level headed off the field and fleet footed on it, Petone's Greg Walker has been making waves in Premier rugby ever since he scored two tries on debut against Hutt Old Boys Marist in round three of the 2006 Jubilee Cup.

Since then the qualified electrician has been consistently lighting up the club rugby fields of Wellington with his power, pace and incisive running style, mostly as a winger but more recently as a centre.

So much so, that Vodafone Wellington Lions coaches Jamie Joseph and Andre Bell recently named him in their 42-man pre-season squad who are currently training fulltime at Rugby League Park ahead of the naming of the Air New Zealand Cup team on 16 July.

Walker joins Petone teammates Dan Kirkpatrick, Eugene Smith, Ross Filipo and Neemia Tialata in the squad, along with several Wellington B teammates from last year. In that team he played throughout the start of their season before suffering a shoulder injury that forced an end to his season.

Walker was brought up in the Hutt Valley and attended St Bernard's College. He made the first fifteen in his fourth form year and the following year helped St. Bernard's to beat Wellington College to the Wellington Secondary Schools title. He then joined Petone, the club he had played for as a junior, and was part of the 2004 Petone U19 side that went through the season undefeated to win the then reinstated Wellington U19 championship title. He then played for the Petone U21s in 2005 and for the first half of the 2006 season before he was called into the Premiers.

Since his Premier debut for Petone he has more or less continually been in their starting fifteen, playing on the left wing for five straight Jubilee Cup games in 2006 and 17 of 19 games in 2007, including their dramatic 24-23 semi-final loss to MSP when his try late in the game seemingly had the game won and his team final bound before his opposite Jope Naubo scored the match winner for MSP.

This year he has played in 11 of 12 games for Petone, and made the smooth transition from the wing to centre midway through the Swindale Shield round. He scored six tries in the first round, and another last week against Upper Hutt in the first round of the Jubilee Cup. In all he has scored?21 Premier tries in 34 starts, including two hat tricks in games last year against Avalon and Wainuiomata.

Photo courtesy of Chris Clifton, www.petonerugby.com