Win-win as Cook faces Rabbitohs at field of dreams

“You can just ask. I know you want to talk about Souths”.

Dragons hooker Damien Cook is straight to the point in acknowledging the significance of playing against his former South Sydney team-mates on Saturday.

However, there is another reason the Round 2 clash at WIN Stadium holds special meaning for the Helensburgh Tigers junior, who is co-captain of the Dragons along with Clint Gutherson. 

“That’s the field where all the junior grand finals are played so that’s the one you wanted to play at when you were a kid,” Cook told NRL.com.

“I’m lucky that I now get to run out there with the Red V on my jersey, so I can’t wait to get back out there. It’s one of my favourite places because it’s where I played my junior footy.

“It’s a special field and to go back there now, it’s going to be a big occasion and it’s fitting that it’s going to be against my old team.”

Now in his 13th NRL season, Cook is back where he began but after playing just two NRL matches for St George Illawarra in 2013 as an interchange utility he has spent most of his career at Redfern before the chance to return arose unexpectedly.

Besides his 207 NRL appearances for the Rabbitohs, including the 2021 grand final, Cook has played 17 Origins for NSW and four Tests for Australia.

“It was a weird feeling when it all happened and when I first walked back in the door it was pretty surreal,” Cook said.

“It was just a full circle moment, I suppose, but there’s some old staff who are still here and the place is just like I remember.

“There are a lot of things that have changed but there are some familiar faces who have made the transition really easy for me and some players I have played alongside before.”

Among those is halfback Lachlan Ilias, who has also made the move from South Sydney to St George Illawarra this season after the return of Wayne Bennett as coach of the Rabbitohs.

Ilias played against Souths in the pre-season but he admitted there would still be plenty of banter when he takes on his former team-mates on Saturday.

“It was good to get the Charity Shield out of the way, but this is the one that matters so we are looking forward to it,” Ilias said.

“There will be a lot of rubbish talking on the field and a lot of fun and games, but it’s time for us to lock in and get the two points.

This is my home now and I am happy here. I’m looking forward to the game, but I will approach it like any other game.

"We have a seven-day turnaround so we will be more than ready for Souths.”

The Rabbitohs are coming off a 16-14 defeat of the Dolphins in Round 1, while the Dragons went down 28-20 to the Bulldogs.

Cook said he had been impressed by Souths performance, considering they were without captain Cameron Murray and superstar fullback Latrell Mitchell due to injury.

“They had a great win, especially when they are missing a couple of big leaders in Cam and Latrell,” he said.

“They held the ball quite well and took their opportunities, so we are going to have to be better than we were [against Canterbury].”

The match against the Bulldogs was Ilias’s official debut for the Dragons and while he enjoyed the occasion the Greek World Cup playmaker said there was a lot to improve on.

“I was happy to be out there, everyone was excited pre-game, but it was obviously not the way you want to start,” he said. “I think there’s a lot to learn from that and we can work with that.

“I think we only had three tackles inside their 20m in the second half so to score the points that we scored just getting out of our end all the time shows we can attack but me included there was too many people who made errors.

“If we made half of those errors, I think we would have won the game.”