Just watched the Storm v Dragons game from this morning - Was very impressed with Mike Cooper! Made lots of yards, some good offloads and ball handling, high work rate and generally looked a real handful playing against one of the best packs in the NRL.
Really has made the most of his move to the NRL - he always looked ok over here, but his game has certainly lifted a level or two. Outshone his team mate and NSW player Trent Merrin who's just agreed a big money move to Penrith.
I'd guess if he keeps up his form, he'll be a real contender for an international jersey. Other young fringe forward over here must be looking at him and thinking they could do the same - a reserve grade contract over there would probably be worth as much as what a young fringe player will earn over here.

Michael Cooper has certainly surpassed all expectations that people had of him when he first moved to Australia. He is unlucky that England is already well stocked with props in the form of the mighty James Graham, the Burgess twins, and Christopher Hill. But injuries to one of these front runners may one day give Michael his opportunity.

He's average. Just goes to prove however that playing in the NRL is going to improve the English players. Anyone with any sort of potential will be doing it going forwards now they have broken down the barriers with the recent successes.

In terms of the international game, the more the merrier. We'll be no.1 quite soon if the exports increase, which given the disparity in both the salary cap and the quality of living between the two competitions increases. Super League however is regressing back to the early 1990's. Instead of Wigan hoovering up anyone with a pulse, it's going to be the NRL. We're only Sky suffering financial trouble off the back of the PL TV deal and we'd be back to semi pro.

Michael Cooper is not average. If he was just average Michael would not be playing alongside such stars as Benji Marshall, Gareth Widdop and Joshua Dugan. St George-Illawarra is a good team, that last night got within 8 points of the powerful Melbourne Storm team, which contains superstars William Slater, Cooper Cronk and Cameron Smith.

TheDragons are a mediocre (at best) NRL side who seem to have based their attack entirely around the erratic form of a halfback who is a shadow of what he was 5 years ago. They looked devoid of any ideas against a Storm side that itself is past its peak and will struggle to make the top 8.

Haven't seen the game yet, but fully agree with all that. except to say even an 80% Benji can still be a hell of a footballer at times. He's one of those guys you'll look back on as an old man and say, I'm glad I got to see him play.

The Dragons are not a good team, they dominated possession, completed more sets, had a higher completion rate, made more meters yet lacked any ideas in attack close to the line. They have been massively overrated by some. I think currently they are around 3rd/4th favorites for the wooden spoon. This is far from a great Melbourne team, and certainly far from what they were just a few years ago. Many have tipped them to miss the 8 this season. This game was a poor scrappy affair and far from 'a good team that got within 8 points of a powerful team'.

Agreed, Benji is nothing like what he use to be. He gets overly praised when he show's glimpses now but they seem to ignore all the rest.

Michael Cooper was at best a bench player at Warrington Wolves. He went to Australia, joined a team that is slightly better than Warrington Wolves, and distinguished himself. That suggests that he should be a considered a good player.

Not a great player like Gregory Inglis, Jarryd Hayne or Jonathan Thurston, nor even a very good player like Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, George Burgess, or Jesse Bromwich But at least one rung below, i.e. a good player. He wasn't that yet at Warrington. So the NRL training regimen and match day experiences have obviously improved him.

All i think it is, is that Coopers game was more suited to Australia than England.

When he was at Warrington he was a tackle anything that is put in front of him type of player, his defence has always been superb, i doubt you'd find any Wire fan that would say different.
His problem was always in attack, the guy had iron hands, some of his lines were off the mark and considering we had Briers and Hodgson directing play it's not as if we were slouches going forward, in fact we scored 1000+ points in 2011 with Cooper only scoring twice that season.

Still got a great long and short kicking game as the 40/20 and the dink through for there try showed.
Widdop who I am a fan of had a poor game for mine.
Cooper has done well since his NRL transition.

Benjamin Marshall

I think we have to be careful when assuming a forward has gone up a level just because he's pulling up trees in the NRL. British forwards generally find the transition fairly easy and dominate quite quickly. I'd only pick the really exceptional forwards from the NRL for the England team, Jammer, T & G Burgess and otherwise stick with SL forwards.

Different story with the backs.

British players dominate quite quickly? You didn't see Flanagan or Edmonson then. Its a different style of rugby - the NRL is actually very physical and a lot of the focus for forwards is a very low error rate. Some SL players will do well, others poorly. Its a much higher standard competition than SL in general - an average NRL player is better than an average SL one. Cooper's done a bit more than that, regularly rating as one of the Dragons' best.

Widdopp is slightly worrying to me as an England supporter. He looks the part, but occasional flashes aside doesn't dominate games or create much. He's starting to look a bit too much like Ben Walker.

I think Widdop is a good solid half but a little bit over rated. He is never going to be in the same class as a Thurston,Cronk or Johnson who can dominate and win matches on their own, and on a regular basis. He is still the best option we have right now though and by some distance imo.Now if only we could find him a quality partner.....