Michael Cooper (rugby league)

Mike Cooper
Personal information
Full name Michael Cooper
Born (1988-09-15) 15 September 1988
Warrington, Cheshire, England
Height 185 cm (6 ft 1 in)
Weight 103 kg (16 st 3 lb)[1][2]
Playing information
Position prop, lock
Club
Years Team Pld T G FG P
2006–13 Warrington Wolves 122 8 0 0 32
2014– St. George Illawarra 47 3 0 0 12
Total 169 11 0 0 44
Representative
Years Team Pld T G FG P
2011–12 England Knights 4 0 0 0 0
2015 England 4 0 0 0 0
As of 14 November 2015
Source: Rugby League Project

Michael Cooper (born 15 September 1989 in Warrington) is an English professional rugby league footballer for St George Illawarra Dragons in the NRL. He previously played for Warrington Wolves in the Super League. He plays as a prop or lock. He began his career with Warrington when he was a part of an Under-11s side who went through a whole season undefeated, winning the championship along the way. This was the catalyst that saw him continue through the junior ranks and eventually become an integral part of the first team.

Mike had a loan period at Castleford in 2010. While at Castleford he got some regular first team action, due to Castleford's crippling injury situation. He scored two tries.

St George Illawarra confirmed the signing of English prop Mike Cooper on a two-year deal starting next NRL season. The Dragons agreed to a release fee with Super League club Warrington Wolves to sign the 24-year-old, who had been under contract to the Wolves through to the end of the 2014 season.

The England international has opened the sports store, 1895 Sports/Run Geek with business partners and friends Sam Wareing and Stuart Hull in Warrington and has been enjoying watching the business grow from strength to strength.

NRL career

St George Illawarra Dragons prop made a very solid and consistent debut season in the NRL. The Warrington Academy junior missed only the one fixture this season which came against the South Sydney Rabbitohs in round 12.

Cooper played 14 games off the bench as an interchange prop and nine games starting on the run-on side. Cooper scored one try this year which came against the New Zealand Warriors in round 7, and in the same game made his only line-break. Cooper ended the season with an average of 44.2 minutes played per game.

He also made 237 runs, and 2,058 metres. He has the best tackles to missed tackles ratio, with an average of 28.1 tackles a game, with only 0.9 missed.

After being selected in England's 2014 Four Nations squad, but not featuring in a match, McNamara selected him again for the 2015 end-of-year test series against New Zealand. In a test match beforehand, Cooper made his debut for England after appearing in England's win over France.[3]

External links

References

  1. ↑ "The official Engage Super League web site". web page. Super League. Archived from the original on October 4, 2011. Retrieved 17 August 2011.
  2. ↑ Mike Cooper
  3. ↑ "England demolish France 84-4 in record win". Sky Sports. Retrieved 24 October 2015.


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, March 30, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.