In the week after cyclist Matthew Fitzgerald was critically injured in a crash at Kurnell, his friends looked for some small way to show their support for him and his family.

As the 44-year-old father lay unconscious in St George Hospital, his fellow cyclists at Two Monkeys Cycling in Penshurst put the call out for people to start folding paper cranes and to drop them at the cycling shop.

Matthew Fitzgerald, right, suffered serious head injuries when he fell from his bicycle.

Japanese tradition says anyone who folds 1000 origami cranes will be granted a wish, and if anyone was in need of some good luck, then surely it was Mr Fitzgerald, a husband and father of two young children.

Soon they had passed their target, and the colourful paper birds were displayed in the window of the shop.