Paul McGregor rates Dragons No. 9 Cameron McInnes NSW’s best
Many of the game’s best judges, including Mal Meninga, are of the opinion that Ben Hunt is at his best playing dummy half — but there’s a good reason he won’t be playing there for the Dragons.
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Damien Cook finished last year as the No. 1 hooker in NSW and Australia.
But that hasn’t stopped Paul McGregor claiming Cameron McInnes is still “the best hooker in the state”.
That is why the St George Illawarra coach has no intention of taking on board Mal Meninga’s advice about Ben Hunt.
Many of the game’s best judges, including Australia’s Test coach, are of the opinion that Hunt is at his best playing dummy half.
Big Mal showed that by naming Hunt as his back-up hooker to Cook in his Kangaroos team last year.
There is now every chance Hunt will go on and play that role for Queensland this year.
But McGregor is of the belief that if he was handing out Blue jumpers, McInnes would be wearing one.
“Well, there are a lot of people that think that (Hunt’s best position is hooker),” McGregor said.
“But I feel like I have the best hooker in the state, so I am happy with him.”
McInnes was right in the frame to get a NSW call-up last year only to be pipped by Cook’s sizzling form.
There was a school of thought at the time that Brad Fittler would name both in his squad.
From there Cook went onto have a wonderful Origin series before taking over from Cameron Smith as Australia’s Test No.9.
“It is only an opinion and everyone has a different opinion,’ McGregor added.
“But I personally, I would have had both (McInnes and Cook) as the hooker rotation in the Origin.
“That is just my preference.
“Cookie has gone on and done unbelievably well and he is now the number one hooker in the country.
“But for me Cam is everything that you want from a hooker as a coach.
“He is unselfish. He gets through 50-plus tackles (a game). He leads line speed, error rate is down.
“If you look statistically across the board he is in the top three or four in most things.
“For people to say to move Ben to hooker when you have Cameron and Reece (Robson) in your team is to me is not what this team needs.
“Certainly during games it is something this team has that other teams don’t, that we can certainly change the momentum of a game through the ruck with positional changes during a game.
“But I am quite happy with Ben as my seven and Cam as my nine.”
Meninga also has a huge opinion of young Robson, telling The Daily Telegraph late last year that he would love to see the Tweed junior playing in the Titans colours if he ever decides to leave the Dragons.
Rated the best young hooker in the game, Robson played Junior Kangaroos last year and Meninga also picked him in the Prime Minister’s XIII.
Robson comes off contract at the end of this season.
But despite plenty of outside interest, the Dragons have no intention of letting him go early.
“I know Mal has a high opinion of Reece because he came out in the paper and said that,’ McGregor added.
“And he actually picked him for that game in Papua New Guinea.
“So we have real luxury in the hooker position.”
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Originally published as Paul McGregor rates Dragons No. 9 Cameron McInnes NSW’s best
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