{"id":880358,"date":"2026-09-05T01:32:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T01:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/880358\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T01:32:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T01:32:22","slug":"premiership-on-the-horizon-dragons-departing-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/880358\/","title":{"rendered":"Premiership on the horizon: Dragon’s departing message"},"content":{"rendered":"

Damien Cook has told St George Illawarra players a premiership can be on the horizon, as he prepares to hand over the mantle to the Dragons’ young brigade.<\/p>\n

Cook will play his 263rd and final NRL game against Parramatta at WIN Stadium on Sunday, with his exit fittingly coming at the same ground he regularly attended as a child.<\/p>\n

The Dragons have endured a difficult season on the way to the club’s first wooden spoon, but the green shoots are clearly there.<\/p>\n

Hamish Stewart and the Couchman twins headline the rising talent at the club, with Dylan Egan and Loko Pasifiki Tonga offer plenty of promise in the pack.<\/p>\n

\"Hamish<\/p>\n

The joint venture have also recruited the best of any side for next season, with Scott Drinkwater, Luke Metcalf, Kodi Nikorima, Keaon Kolomotangi and Phil Sami bound for the club.<\/p>\n

“I’ve told some of the young guys, if you get it right over over the next bit I don’t see why there can’t be a premiership here in the next three-to-five years,” Cook told AAP.<\/p>\n

“I’ll definitely be watching closely next year and I’ve got no doubt they’re going to have success next year because I just see the standard that they’ve got.<\/p>\n

“Just with the style of footy that they’ve got, the young talent that they have in the forwards and some good signings coming in.”<\/p>\n

A fairytale grand-final win aside, Cook considers playing his final game in Wollongong as a perfect end to his NRL career before moving to the Super League.<\/p>\n

\"Damien<\/p>\n

The dummy-half grew up playing for Helensburgh in the Illawarra competition, and regularly sat on the WIN Stadium hill as a kid.<\/p>\n

His journey since then has also been unique. Cook bounced around the Dragons, Penrith and Canterbury before really getting a proper chance in the NRL.<\/p>\n

He became a regular NRL player as a 25-year-old at South Sydney in 2016, while he only became their first-choice No.9 two seasons later.<\/p>\n

Within months he had won the NSW No.9 jersey, become the best running hooker in the NRL.<\/p>\n

But after earning four Test caps for Australia and going within a whisker of a premiership with the Rabbitohs in 2021, his NRL career will finish back in Wollongong.<\/p>\n

\"Damien<\/p>\n

“It’s special that it worked out that way,” the Dragons co-captain said.<\/p>\n

“As a kid there were a couple of times you’d get on the field at halftime, with the old-school club relay we used to do.<\/p>\n

“But even being on the hill, or a lot of the time we’d try to sneak around the stadium and find the good seats to get as close as we could to the players.<\/p>\n

“I’ve got a lot of good memories of WIN Stadium and just footy in general along the coast here, with some time at the (Thirroul) Butchers as well. It’s pretty cool.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Damien Cook has told St George Illawarra players a premiership can be on the horizon, as he prepares…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":880359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[449729,4764,64,63,17862,4420,4027,4431,36720,761,762,158,16390,85,61689,25705],"class_list":["post-880358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-263rd","tag-aap","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cook","tag-damien-cook","tag-dragons","tag-hamish-stewart","tag-mark-evans","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-parramatta","tag-sports","tag-st-george-illawarra","tag-win-stadium"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880358","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=880358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}