I'm going to go against the grain here and say Gavin Cooper isn't underrated at all. His recognised as a player that has created a great partnership with Thurston over the last few years. In a way he his a tool that Thurston uses to great effect for the Cowboys. Whether he'd be able to be as effective in another team with another playmaker is debatable. He has had a solid career until about 2013, he was pretty anonymous at his time with the titans and panthers and it took a few years back at the Cowboys to build his combination and get to that full effectiveness. I think he is one of those players that if he got picked for origin he'd go from underrated to overrated in the blink of an eye. He reminds me a lot of Chris McQueen. When maguire first came to the rabbitohs Chris mcqueen was a similar style of average first graders. So maguire created a specific role for maguire as an edge second rower where all he had to do was run specific lines which he become very effective at. Towards the back end of 2012 Chris mcqueen got the similar 'underrated player' from guys in the media like sterlo. That continued right upto his origin selection. In origin he struggled as he was out of his normal team environment, he had to make a new combinations in quick time, and he's role was different to what he was used to at Souths. He was also now an.'origin player'
, he recieved an upgraded contract due to that, and he very quickly became one of the most overrated players in the comp. Whether that would happen to cooper i don't know, but my gut tells me it would. He is considered a great clubman who has struck up a great partnership with one of the greatest halves of all time and i think that rating is spot on
