Roosters captain James Tedesco has come out in defence of halfback Sam Walker after the young gun copped criticism for his early season form.
The 19-year-old has played all four games for the Roosters so far in 2022 as they've gone to a 2-2 tally, but pundits have come out swinging against the talented Englishman after a series of missed tackles across the first month of the season.
Tedesco, who joined the Roosters in 2018, stressed that at just 19 Walker has plenty of development left to grow into a star player.
“He’s such a skilful player Sammy, he’s an instincts player, just plays what he sees and I know he cops a bit for his defence but I think he’s done well," Tedesco said.
“He’s had to put his body on the line a number of times and he’s only a small frame, hopefully he keeps getting bigger and he put on a couple of kilos.
“But I think halfbacks or halves don’t really develop until they’re 21 or 22 so there’s plenty of years left in him to develop and be at the top of his game.
“But I think for a young kid coming in, especially last year when he was rushed in without much help, he’s done a really good job for us.
“He’s going to continue to develop and get better and better and I’m excited to see his growth.”
Tedesco admitted that the partnership between Walker and Keary, who spent most of last year on the sidelines recovering from an ACL injury, needed time to develop.
“Keary hadn’t played for a year and those two (Keary and Walker) hadn’t played together and Rads hadn’t played with them" Tedesco said.
“There was a lot of combos we had to work on and I think a lot of the little things we took for granted a bit.
“We probably thought we’d go out and play our style but we had to definitely work for it the start of the year and we went back to that on the weekend just working for each other.”
“We’ve got a lot of skilful players in our team so opportunities will come off the back of that, Joey Manu can create something out of nothing at times,” Tedesco said.
“So the thing for us is just keeping it simple, working on our combinations weekly and definitely completing.
“We’d made a lot of errors that let us down a bit but on the weekend we got back to Roosters footy and had a good result so we’ll look to keep that going this weekend.”
The Roosters will travel to Brisbane next to face the Broncos on Friday night, hoping to win back-to-back matches for the first time this season.
