Damien Cook’s NRL legacy stretches from beach sprinting to the trail he leaves behind

With a bit of luck, they’ll tell the old Damien Cook story one more time.

This weekend, the 35-year-old St George Illawarra skipper will play his final NRL match before heading to Super League side Castleford next year.

His farewell will be at Wollongong Showground, the closest ground in the league to the ocean. When the swell’s big, you can almost hear the waves crashing on City Beach from the hill. 

Maybe it will be when Cook runs out for the 263rd and last time, or perhaps he’ll dart out from dummy half to take on the Parramatta defence with a glimpse of the old quickness.

Maybe it’ll be the commentators who say it, maybe it’ll just be fans in the stands, but someone, somewhere will almost certainly tell somebody else “you know, he used to be a champion beach sprinter.”

It’s a story nobody seems to tire of telling — Cook himself still hears about it all the time.

“It’s the great Dane Gagai’s fault. He mentioned it one day when I was doing media — a few people knew about it, but he said it real loud, the journo I was speaking to did a story on it and it got out from there,” Cook said.

“It’s never stopped; I still get it every day. Commentators say it, I get it in comments, DMs, Instagram stories; if people see a post about a beach sprinter they tag me in it. You have to laugh.”

The yarn got its greatest play during Cook’s ascent to becoming one of the best hookers in rugby league, which came almost 10 years ago now, and it’s worth breaking it out one more time to celebrate the end of an NRL career with an extraordinarily long tail.

It took a while to get going. Cook spent plenty of time as a second-stringer on second-rate teams.

He did not make the run on side for an NRL match until he was almost 23 and wasn’t a full-time starter at hooker until the year he turned 27.

But after taking the long way, he made up for lost time immediately, and once the beach sprinting tale got used up, we started to tell others.

Cook can’t pick his favourite himself. He is overwhelmed by the memories he’s made because there are so many.

This late starter has now played the seventh-most matches of any dummy half in the history of the game, so when you ask him about his favourite match there’s so much to choose from.

There’s the first grade debut back in 2013, of course, which came for St George Illawarra against Wests Tigers at the Sydney Cricket Ground in Heritage Round. The retro jerseys and brown football made it feel like history even while it was happening.

There was the first game at Wollongong a week later. Cook is proud to finish his NRL journey there, given it’s where he grew up watching football and where he played his junior grand finals for Helensburgh.

In a nice full-circle moment, his first match there in the top grade came against the Eels, just like his last will.

“The big one that day was when I got under Fuifui Moi Moi — it wasn’t me being brave, he was coming straight at me,” Cook said.

“I didn’t have much of a choice.”

There’s the late-season cameo for Canterbury in 2015, which first made Cook’s name and proved he could ride the lightning, and his debut at South Sydney, where he played more than 200 games and spent his most glorious times.

There’s his first State of Origin match in front of 90,000 at the MCG in 2018, when he was one of 11 New South Wales debutants alongside players like Nathan Cleary, Tom Trbojevic, Latrell Mitchell and Cameron Murray.

Cook was the best of them that night in a magnificent beginning, and he always seemed to find something extra for the Blues — among dummy halves, only Ben Elias and Danny Buderus have worn the jersey more.

The 2019 decider, when he scored a scorching try right through the heart of the Queensland defence, was perhaps his single greatest highlight in rep football, but playing for Australia against Tonga in Auckland later that season was another special night.

As the Tongan anthem rang out through the night, Cook thought he’d be crushed by the noise.

“All the Tongans were singing their anthem, just this sea of red. I thought ‘bloody hell, nobody is going to sing our anthem; we’re up against it here’,” Cook said.

“But then all the Tongans sang our anthem as well. The sound of it, I’ll never forget it.”

The pandemic ravaging international football and the eventual emergence of Harry Grant kept Cook to just four Tests, but he did get the special honour of playing one in Wollongong the following season and duly marked it by scoring a try.

It was no barge-over from close range though — it was an intercept that Cook took 70 metres all the way home.

He could have run along Lawrence Hargrave Drive, across the Sea Cliff Bridge, and up the hill all the way back to Helensburgh and the Kiwis wouldn’t have caught him.

Then there’s all the club wars as well, because once Cook became one of the best he liked nothing more than testing himself against the top sides.

He says he relished the days where South Sydney had a real shot at being pride of the league again and had it out with the likes of Melbourne, Penrith and the Sydney Roosters with everything to play for and no quarter asked for or given.

All told, when asked to pick a single favourite game, Cook named almost a dozen. He just couldn’t leave anything out.

“I know you asked for one, but rugby league has given me so much,” Cook said.

“The mates, the moments, the memories, it’s why you do it.”

Cook himself gave plenty of people similarly glorious memories.

He was fast enough that a dart from dummy half would make the crowd rise, fast enough that he could break into space and round the fullback from anywhere, fast enough that when Wayne Bennett came out favouring the NRL’s proposed set restart rules in 2020 some said the wily old coach was doing it just to suit Cook.

But there was more to Cook’s game than raw pace. He’s a cannier playmaker than some might think — in 2019 he accumulated 18 try assists, more than Grant has ever managed in a single season and equal to Cameron Smith’s career high.

Cook was also among the top four players in the league for tackles made in seven of his first eight seasons.

If he gets through 25 tackles on Sunday, which is light work so long as he plays big minutes, he’ll pass 10,500 of them for his career, and given the middle of the field is where the giants live, he’ll have given up size and weight on just about every one of them.

Somehow, he has gotten through those 10,000 blows without ever being seriously broken — this year marks the 10th season in a row Cook will manage at least 23 games.

That’s a point of pride for Cook. Once he got a taste of his dream coming true, it became a prize beyond value.

“It took a while to get there, so once I did I never wanted to let it go. I’m very proud of that because I put a lot of time into recovery and working hard and staying fit and being ready for every pre-season so I can get the most out of it,” Cook said.

“I’ve set high standards for myself, which is why I’ve been able to play consistently. Even in NSW Cup I tried to do that.

“Touch wood, I haven’t had a bad injury since I was at the Dogs when I broke my thumb — the other games that ruin my record were getting rested or COVID protocols, and I wish we could take those off.

“Longevity and consistency are something I’m really proud of.”

In the end, being there all day every day has taken its toll on Cook. It has slowed him down, and the ravages of age have finally overtaken whatever benefits he gained from his late start.

He has just two try assists and one line break for the season and has spent time on the bench and as 18th man. It feels like this change has come at the right time for him.

The wins have not come as Cook or St George Illawarra would have liked in the two seasons since he joined, but that doesn’t mean he won’t leave a legacy.

The Dragons have a host of young players who hold the future in their hands, perhaps none more than 23-year-old backrower Hamish Stewart.

“It’s me, Gutho [Clint Gutherson] and Cooky in the gym. You see him, day in and day out, and he has the most energy of anyone. He never skips a rep,” Stewart said.

“He’s been massive for all us young blokes, showing us how to run a team and how a club really works.

“I love how he goes about life off the field as well — I feel like I can go to him about anything.”

Stewart has played every game this season and earned plenty of plaudits despite the Red V’s struggles.

Along with the Couchman brothers, Dylan Egan and Loko Pasifiki Tonga, Stewart is part of the sun that can break through the clouds and of all those players, his tomorrows may be the brightest.

If Stewart does go on and makes the most of it, Cook will play a role even if they’re not packing down together.

The veteran is the kind of guy who can hold a beaten-down town together, and even if the team hasn’t been winning, that doesn’t mean Cook hasn’t been teaching.

In trying to impart the hard-won wisdom of his rise, Cook is leaving behind something that will last once he’s gone. His lessons will remain, like footsteps in the sand.

“You have to make sure you’re doing the right things all the time, to lead by example. You have to push right along to the end of the season, even if it’s a tough one,” Cook said.

“It’s easy to tick the boxes when you’re winning games, but when you’re up against it you still have to push hard every day.

“That’s a good value to have, and a lot of the players here have that.”

If he’s right, that could be the longest tail of all for Cook, who leaves the club in a far better place than he found it.

He has shown these boys how to live, but now they must become men without him.

“He’s always got a smile on his face every day. You see him when you walk through the doors and you know you’re gonna have a good day,” Stewart said.

“That’s what I’ll miss the most.”

For Cook himself, this is an end but not the end.

He’s excited about playing for Castleford next year, to have a new challenge in a new place, to have something to prove again, to do the work and love it and to give it everything he’s got, which Cook says is all he’s ever done.

He’s excited for Sunday, to see family and friends in the crowd and, one last time, to live that dream he would not surrender during the hard times.

There’s no beach, but it’ll be a fine day to get a sprint in.

“If I told my younger self what would happen over the past 14 or 15 years, I don’t think he’d believe me,” Cook said.

“Definitely after the season it will [sink in], especially when I’m packing up the house and going through some jerseys. That’ll bring back the memories.

“But there’s still more to do.”