NRL 2020: Andrew Johns reveals advice ahead of nephew Cooper Johns’ debut

The Johns dynasty in rugby league has its latest addition with Cooper Johns making his debut for the Melbourne Storm against the Eels.

One of the great NRL dynasty‘s is set for its latest addition with Cooper Johns set to make his debut for the Melbourne Storm against the Parramatta Eels.

Cooper, the son of Matthew Johns and nephew of rugby league Immortal Andrew Johns, joins his brother Jack, who debuted for the South Sydney Rabbitohs against the Canberra Raiders on July 25, on the 2020 debutant list for one of rugby league‘s most well known families.

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In fact, Cooper was even caught chatting with his uncle before the game.

Andrew, who has been the Eels‘ halves coach in 2020, said Cooper was “nice and cool and relaxed” after a quick chat to see how he was going.

He told Channel 9‘s coverage his message was “get your defence right, good luck tackling Maika Sivo, see how you go tackling him”.

Uncle Joey gives young Cooper some advice.

It comes after the Storm shared the video of Cooper receiving his first NRL jersey, with dad Matthew and mum Trish streaming in.

Matthew gave a heartfelt speech.

“It’s a great achievement to play first grade football, but even more so at Melbourne because they don’t give away jerseys,” the Fox League personality said.

“I think mate, when you tell people that you played first grade football for the Melbourne Storm it doesn’t just impact people who love rugby league or love sport.

“I think mate, if you played first grade there I think it says a lot about your quality as a human, so mate well done.

“It’s pretty surreal too mate given the fact that you supported the Storm as a kid, unless they were behind at halftime. Well done.”

How good is this?!?#YourStorm pic.twitter.com/Deqri2Wyw6

— Melbourne Storm (@storm) August 20, 2020

Coming from great rugby league stock, Fox League‘s personalities said if you could get some pre-game advice from anyone, a league Immortal is a great one to have in your corner.

“Can I just start by asking a 360 question? Is that a breach of contract from Andrew Johns?” Ben Ikin joked after the vision of the pair chatting was played.

“If you‘re going to get advice from anyone before a game when you’re on debut as a halfback, pretty handy to have Andrew Johns in your corner. The thing I’ve heard and been told numerous occasions about young Cooper is that he’s a great student. He hasn’t got the speed or natural flair of his dad or his uncle but he’s a real tradesman who can get the job done and suck in a lot of information, so he would have been taking advantage of that with Uncle Andrew.”

Braith Anasta said: “It‘s a tough situation with Joey being the halves coach of Parramatta. The advice he’d usually give Cooper usually would be a lot different that what he’d be able to give him tonight against his players. So it’s an unusual situation.”

Michael Ennis said his real strength is his “effort areas”.

Ikin added that Johns could be just the player the Storm need with the likes of Cameron Smith, Cameron Munster and Jahrome Hughes on sidelines. He said he was “almost the perfect young halfback to come in and do a job in the seven jersey”.

“He won‘t carry the expectation of Matthew or Andrew because my sense of it is that his path to first grade has been filled with patience,” Ikin said. ”He seems to be the level headed sort of man that won’t put those expectations of an Andrew or a Matthew on his game before he plays.”