Cunningham all around game is excellent, I think he will make a better hooker than Houghton, think he will get a few games this year and step in next year.

We've never replace swain properly and has had a far greater impact on us than losing and not replacing cooke

That's a moot point but the importance of a hooker that's intelligent, can manage the game and has the skills to move the ball quickly and accurately to the right players at the right time has rarely if ever been better demonstrated than by Cameron Smith. He's a freak but he's what we should be aiming at.

Don't even know we're to start with that, Surley it's a wind up?



Dig up the assist stats for the seasons 03-07, find the season review DVDs for these periods, pretty much everything we did was through Cooke, and it was successful. When we lost and didn't replace Cooke we overnight turning into a different team, and still 7 years later don't like recovering.



Swain was a brilliant player, smart and an absolute workhorse, but didn't have as much as a direct impact on the huge percentage of Hulls try's that Cooke did.

You might want to watch a few of those games again and take a look at why Cooke had the freedom to play like he did.



Swain was every bit as important to that side as Cooke. Arguably more so but not definitely.

Sorry I'm not having that, that's not a slight on Swain or doubting the influence Swain had on Cooke, but our downfalls biggest factor was losing Cooke. It's all opinion but I think it's safe to say lack of creativity, someone who can find a pass to convert possession into going over the line is what Hull have missed the most.



Stats don't tell the full story by any means, but if you class 04, 05 and 06 as our best period of the past decade as I would, Cookes assist stats are:



04-21

05-29

06-24



Like I say don't tell the full story, but then again think of the number of try's set up by Cooke on that left hand side that he didn't directly assist, and what offered with his kicking game his influence was huge.



The closest any other Hull player to this in terms of assists was Dykes in 2008 with 13 I believe, when you consider this and our general lack of creatively and ability to score try's since Cooke left, it's hard in my opinion to say that any single factor contributed more to our downfall then losing Cooke's creativity (and more importantly not replacing him), however good a player Swain was, which is not in question, he was a beast.

When Cooke played for us at his best and perhaps against us he was one of the most efficient and effective players I've seen. Just about everything he did brought a better than average return. He had a very sharp rugby brain which put him in the right position most of the time and he was able to get that over to those around him as well. His arrogance helped him to shrug off any mistake that he did make and just move on to the next thing whilst carrying on firing out the orders. Hugely influential when with us and hugely missed.

Not a wind up, but my opinion. cooke was a very important player for us and has been badly missed since, however, swain carried that team and created the go forward that players like cooke needed. It's no coincidence that cooke's career went down the pan when he didn't have that calibre of hooker to play off for the rest of his career.

Can see we're your coming from but think Cooke's personal issues and the pressure of the move are why his career went down the pan.



It sounds like I'm underating Swain here, which I'm not but for a hooker to have that kind of influence he'd have probabally had to have been the greatest of all time, Cooke could find that cut out pass as good as anyone I've seen, sure speed of distribution from DH would have helped but he'd still have that ability even if someone else was at dummy half, It would be like saying the likes of Cronk, Slater, Inglis would not be good at what they do without Cam Smith, for me it's just top players working well together, in the same way that Swain, Cooke and Horne worked well together in that period, Cooke's contribution to that side was never replaced.



Like I say Swain was a top player, was adored at Melbourne too, but I think most would agree that his influence was down to his defence, leadership and reading of the game, rather then a direct attacking influence, I'd even say in that sense, a fully fit Richard Horne was more influential to our attack.

cooke was a good quality club player but no more. Swain was a world class hooker who had far more to his game than defence and leadership abilities. Go back and watch some of the games

I'm not denying he had more to his game, and in the context yes he was a world class hooker, and Cooke was a flawed player, but honestly watch the games from this period and honestly say that he had a bigger impact then Cooke, almost everything was through him we were so one dimensional really.



A similar analogy would be the old Manu/Ellis comparisons, hands down Ellis is a world class player respected much more in the game then Manu will ever be, Manu had his faults, but in terms of attacking influence on the side Ellis didn't, and won't have the same impact Manu did.

From 2004-2007 Swain was our best player but Cooke was the most important.