Christian picked cricket over rugby

Christian's mother Toni spent hours driving him from Campbelltown to Kensington when Christian joined the University of NSW cricket team, where he was mentored by Geoff Lawson and Michael Slater. "And the M5 Motorway didn't extend all that way back then," Toni laughed. "It was especially busy when the footy and cricket seasons overlapped, we'd be driving from the footy to the cricket, and the cricket to the footy."

She added: "The move to Sydney was a big thing for him at 13, he had to make a whole lot of new friends, but that was his dream, going to St Greg's mainly to play footy. Cricket came second back in those days. "He broke a leg playing footy when he was 14, he had to get screws put in but came back from that fairly well," she said.