After being pipped by a single four-pointer in the Sunshine Coast Sea Eagles’ try-scoring stakes, you’d forgive Ryan Walker for rueing every last dropped ball and missed half opportunity. However, the prolific scorer says when you go into the year not expecting to play a single game of first-grade football, let alone cross the line, it’s hard not to be positive in your reflections.

Walker is one of the side’s success stories of 2009. He came to the club from the Orara Valley Axemen in Coffs Harbour, assuming he would spend the season in the second division FOGS Cup. However, after taking up yoga and clamping down on his eating and training habits, he transformed himself into a regular first-grader. Following a three-try haul in the last game of the home -and-away season, Dennis Sandow (13 tries) finished the regular season on top of the team try scorers list, beating Walker (12) by a single try.

Despite coming in second, the winger said 2009 had exceeded his expectations. “At the start of the year, you want to try to score tries, because you like scoring them,” he said. “But I expected to get one or two. You just take them as they come.”

Ahead of the side’s inaugural semi-final appearance against the Central Comets tonight, Walker said the Sea Eagles wouldn’t be underestimating the Rockhampton side, despite pasting them 46-0 in their last encounter. He said the team still had vivid memories of their first encounter of the year in Bundaberg when a piece of magic from Broncos behemoth Dave Taylor handed the Comets a nail-biting 34-32 win.

While Walker and his teammates will be thanking their lucky stars Taylor turned out for Brisbane in their Queensland derby with the Cowboys last night, the 23-year-old said the Comets were still a side brimming with talent such as Matt Sing and PJ Marsh. “We know that last game was last game and this week is this week,” he said. In team news, Adam Cuthbertson is a late replacement for Tony Williams, who has received a call-up to NRL club Manly’s side.