- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Teammate Cooper Cronk has backed Cameron Smith to see off the challenge from Robbie Farah, who’ll be out to press claims for the Test hooker role in Wednesday night’s rugby league State of Origin opener.
Having finally nailed down the NSW job, Farah has made it clear he would like to be Australia’s No.9 for the World Cup later this year but Smith, who succeeded Darren Lockyer as Australian captain last year, has had a mortgage on the Test spot.
Asked if Smith was still the game’s best hooker, halfback Cronk said: “I would certainly think so …. but them again, I’m obviously biased.
“Rugby league is a game played by people with highly competitive natures.
“Robbie is entitled to strive for everything he wants to achieve in our game.
“Cameron is just as competitive and he’s played at a high level for a long time.
“While Cameron is playing at the consistently high level he has for such a long time I think he has every right to consider himself the number one hooker in the game.”
Cronk said his club, state and Test teammate Smith was also one of the game’s hardest workers.
“The one thing about Cameron is he trains very hard,” said Cronk.
“He’s always in the gym lifting a lot of weights and on the field he does all the fitness work.
“The reason why he is so good is because he works so hard.”
Meanwhile the other member of Queensland’s Melbourne-based “spine”, fullback Billy Slater wasn’t giving anything away about how the Maroons will use destructive centre Greg Inglis in Wednesday night’s Origin opener at ANZ Stadium.
There’s been talk Inglis will “float” around to ensure he gets plenty of possession and could play some time at fullback, the position where he’s excelled for South Sydney this season.
“We’ll just have to wait and see. Obviously it would be pretty silly for us to not give Greggy the ball as much as possible,” said Slater.
“Greg is a great player and playing some good football at the moment so it’s important to get him the ball a lot when he wants it.”
Reckon you can pick the winning team? Build your own dream team with Draftstars daily fantasy and compete on any match. For great odds on the NRL head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.