Angus Crichton, Campbell Graham eye grudge match at Allianz

Angus Crichton says the Sydney Roosters will be doing everything they can to spoil Alex Johnstone's try scoring party and celebrate his 200th NRL match come Friday night.

Speaking with media on Monday, the Roosters second-rower who played his first 50 NRL matches at South Sydney says the milestone match is a special moment.

"You don’t often get much time to reflect on your games and your career," he said.

"I don’t love the attention being on you, but I'm blessed to live my dream out and call this job work. To be able to do that 200 games… so many people I need to thank, so many people that got me to this point, it’s more about celebrating them as well I think."

With a slew of representative jerseys in his collection, Crichton is no stranger to a big game, but expects a fierce atmosphere come Friday night.

"There will definitely be a lot of feeling, a lot of passion," he said, "I’m sure the crowd will bring that as well.” 

With much talk centring around Alex Johnston's imminent breaking of the all time NRL try scoring record, Crichton is keen to spoil the party.

"Hopefully he doesn't do it this week," he said.

"I’m happy for him and I hope he breaks the record, he obviously will break the record, but we’ll be doing everything we can to make sure he doesn’t do it here."

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Having scored a double on his return to the NRL in Round 1, South Sydney centre Campbell Graham is turning his sights to this weekend grudge match against the Sydney Roosters.

"I feel like this is the in-season game of the year for us," Graham said in an interview with the NRL.

"It's come early, but we're very excited, especially at Allianz... I suppose it's our away game, but it feels like a home game for us as well because it's in our backyard.

"It's definately a game that I personally look forward to most and [i'm] expecting a great atmosphere out there on Friday."

Graham, who sat out the entire 2024 season due to a severe sternum injury and played only 11 games in 2025 said it was good to back out on the field after a strong pre-season and that he expects to see the team continue to improve.

“We weren't perfect, but we didn't expect to be in Round 1, so, Dave's in the same boat.

“I thought he showed us glimpses of how good he can be for us and how good he will be for us this year and I'm sure he'll build off that. He's shown a bit of his skill in the pre-season, long passes, a few kicks here and there, so he's got it all in the bag for a big fella.

“He's very impressive and he's probably been one of our best this pre-season, to be honest, it's the way he's attacked it. You can tell he had a chip on his shoulder coming into the pre-season and he’s looking really fit.”