Brailey’s dummy-half battle with Grant looms as one of the key factors of Friday night’s preliminary final, with the pair easily the best No.9s of 2025.<\/p>\n
Grant has long held the title of the game’s pre-eminent hooker, having assumed the mantle almost immediately upon replacing Cameron Smith at the Storm.<\/p>\n
But there is little argument against claims Brailey is the NRL’s form hooker at the moment, running the ball more and leading almost every key statistical category.<\/p>\n
“He’s the best hooker in the game, and he’s been the best for a long time now,” Brailey told AAP of Grant on Monday.<\/p>\n
“It’s going to be a great match up, and I’m looking forward to it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“He’s a captain in the middle, he plays pretty much 80 minutes, and needs to lead his side and communicate and lead for his actions.<\/p>\n
“The way he attacks, it’s obviously really dangerous. A lot of teams have trouble containing him … When he does play, I tune in and watch him really closely.”<\/p>\n
Grant has had a mortgage on the Kangaroos hooking role since his debut in 2022, albeit sometimes coming off the bench with utility Ben Hunt starting at No.9.<\/p>\n
Australia selectors could opt for that same approach in this year’s Ashes, with Tests at Wembley, Everton and Headingley.<\/p>\n
But Brailey could also loom as a back-up option for the Kangaroos given his hot form this year, with Reece Robson and Tom Dearden other candidates.<\/p>\n
The Cronulla No.9 is almost certain to become the first Shark since Michael Ennis in 2015 to be crowned Dally M hooker of the year next Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
Brailey also has options around the Ashes.<\/p>\n
His mother was born in Liverpool, and he is therefore eligible to play for England.<\/p>\n
Brailey has not previously been contacted by English officials, and if he did opt to play for them he would immediately become ineligible for State of Origin under current rules.<\/p>\n
“Hopefully we’re playing together,” the hooker said of he and Grant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It’s a long way away and I can play for England too.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I do have a soft side for England. My mum means so much to me and she was born in Liverpool in England. She didn’t come to Australia until she’s a bit older.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I’m not too sure what the next few weeks have in store for me, but hopefully I do get a phone call … All those things will come off the back of a good finals series.”\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brailey’s dummy-half battle with Grant looms as one of the key factors of Friday night’s preliminary final, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-160370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}