Fortunately for Stephen Crichton, his transition to the No.6 jersey is probably going to be the enduring image of his 2026 campaign, not the half-dozen times he’s been floored by injury and left grimacing in pain.

Even with Canterbury’s resurgence and a stunning NSW Origin series win, this has been the toughest year of Crichton’s glittering career – though his is one of the most successful of modern times.

Three premierships, four Dally M centre of the year awards, two Origin series triumphs, 2024 captain of the year honours and a Bulldogs revival over the past two seasons make for the most impressive of rugby league resumes.

But 2026 might still bring the best out of the Canterbury captain. After all, he has weathered a grade 5 AC joint injury in his shoulder that left him playing through pain for three months, and then the recurring, related nerve damage that regularly required the attention of Bulldogs trainers.

“I just saw bravery,” coach Cameron Ciraldo says of Crichton’s leadership when his side was in the doldrums.

“During that period you know he was busted quite clearly and probably shouldn’t have played.
“But he’s brave enough to keep turning up and putting his body on the line when he was nowhere near 100 per cent.

“Your best leaders have to be brave at times, whether it’s physical bravery or the emotional bravery to turn up and have the same energy every Monday morning – win, lose or draw – and that’s what I saw from Critta”.

Crichton speaks the same way about Canterbury’s turnaround, which has yielded six wins from their last seven games going into Friday’s mouthwatering clash against the Roosters.

“It’s always tough when you’re losing and people expect wins,” he says.

“And I feel like the last couple of years we’ve built that expectation. Learning through that period, we lacked our team values… we just went back to things that we want Bulldogs players to look like.

“Looking back at that period now, the conversations that we have now are the conversations that we were having back then. We knew in our four walls, even though we were losing at the time, that we could pull some wins together.”

Typically, Crichton won’t say much on his injury battles, other than that they’re largely behind him.

But after round-the-clock treatment on his shoulder that halved his recovery from the predicted six weeks to three (with Bulldogs medical staff paying him regular home visits), Crichton is back in full-contact training and able to shake off painful knocks much easier.

A hit that briefly dropped him last week against Melbourne raised concern again, given Crichton had lost feeling down his right arm and been taken from the field on a medi cab in last month’s 40-16 loss to Canberra.

Crichton responded against the Storm with a pair of match-winning tries in the last 10 minutes.

His move from centre to five-eighth has freed up Canterbury’s attack and burgeoning No.7 Lachlan Galvin, ensuring the Bulldogs loudest voice is calling the shots more often, and teaching Galvin about the finer things in rugby league along the way.

It’s not lost on Ciraldo, either, that his new scrumbase combination has found their feet with all eyes on them. “They had to deal with a fair bit [of scrutiny],” he says. “Credit to both those guys’ mental toughness that they could put all that to one side.”

“Patience is the biggest thing,” Crichton says.

“We’ve got Lachie [Galvin] there as our 21-year-old halfback, he sees the game a lot different to others. Sitting down and watching the game back with him, he sees the game differently to others.

“So teaching him the patience of the game, and winning the game at the back end of the game instead of chasing everything early is the biggest learning for Lachie. I feel like the last couple of weeks that he’s really nailed that. And there’s still moments in the game where he can be a lot better at that.

“But transitioning into six and being a little bit calmer with Lachie, just playing alongside him and being more patient are the learnings around the ball.”

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Dan Walsh is a sports reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.