One of the stories that best sums up Joey Walton happened last year when the Waratahs centre took a spot in an already crowded corner of injured players. Walton had plantar fasciitis, a painful and tough-to-shake condition affecting the tissue on the bottom of a foot. But when he heard stories of athletes who had got back quicker by jumping off a table and deliberately rupturing the plantar fascia – including former AFL star Robert Harvey – Walton began planning. To make sure of it, he figured he’d need a weighted backpack and a table to jump off, and began making plans. Calm heads prevailed (the procedure is not recommended), the jump never happened and Walton returned to action via normal rehab. But the fact he’d been prepared to go to such lengths to help his injury-hit team did not go unnoticed. Fast-forward a year, and the level of respect and admiration for Walton at the Waratahs was finally exposed by the 24-year-old’s appointment as captain of the side to meet the Hurricanes in Wellington on Friday night.