I rang my favourite playmaker and asked how he does it. His answers shocked me

Deception: the act of making someone believe something that is not true, by hiding or distorting the truth.

Webster’s Dictionary might as well be describing the art of rugby league ballplaying right there.

When you’re holding the Steeden as a playmaker, you’re trying to make the defence think the opposite of what you’re actually going to do: they think you’re going to pass when you’re actually kicking; passing when you’re dummying and running, and so on.

Now, I never thought I would see another player like the great Cliffy Lyons. He was a pure joy to watch, and an utter nightmare to play against. So in my eyes, this is the greatest compliment I can give a player.

Cody Walker is the closest thing to Cliffy I have seen. So I rang Cody this week. Nailed him down, one old playmaker to another, and I’m still fascinated by how he approaches his craft.

For one thing, Cody doesn’t do much video work down at South Sydney headquarters. That doesn’t mean he’s not across his opposition, though. Rabbitohs assistant coach Ben Hornby prepares any specific clips the coaching staff need their chief playmaker to know about.

But Walker watches all eight games of NRL every week with his young boys at home anyway. He stores all the relevant information he needs upstairs between his ears, in his own personal Rolodex of a few thousand opposition NRL defenders.

Now a big lesson for young playmakers, and coaches at all levels for that matter, is Cody never premeditates who he’s going to pass to.

That decision is based on watching the defence, and to get down into the nitty-gritty of it, he scans first for what the opposition back-rower is doing and thinking.

He’s watching that defender’s eyes – it’s the eyes that betray you first. Then he watches the centre and the winger for their reaction and movements, again, often looking at where their eyes are travelling first, because the body follows.

Now for example, when I played we were up against slide defences a lot more than today’s up-and-in defence, and they were nowhere near as organised as they are now. So I’d watch the third defender in – typically the opposition half – but Cody identifying the stronger defender (the back-rower) as his target fascinates me.

Cliffy and Cody: My two all-time favourites

The parallels between these two champions run a fair bit deeper than just bamboozling defenders. Neither man played regular first-grade until their mid-to-late 20s.

Cliffy came to Sydney from the Riverina area, but bounced around from Norths to England, playing with Leeds and the Sheffield Eagles. He didn’t get to Manly until he was 24, but within two seasons he had a premiership and the 1987 Clive Churchill Medal, with two Dally M Medals to follow.

Trying to defend against him and Manly’s right edge was tough. You’d think Cliffy was passing long to Terry Hill, then suddenly he’d be playing short to Steve “Beaver” Menzies. Next time up, you’d think, “Right, short to Beaver”, and Cliffy would go long to Hill. Then he’d run himself. “Don’t watch the ball,” you’d yell. “He’ll hypnotise you.”

You’d be standing under the posts wondering what you’d spent the entire week running defensive drills for, because you’d just been suckered in by the same plays you knew were coming.

I can only imagine defending against Cody Walker is the same. Because from the commentary box, it sure looks like it.

Like Cliffy, Cody was a late bloomer in the NRL, only making his debut at 26 with Souths after bouncing around from the Windsor Wolves up to Easts Tigers in the Queensland Cup, down to Melbourne and then to Redfern.

Now, at the age of 36, watch him go to work against the Roosters on Friday night, particularly a right-edge defence that hasn’t played together given Trent Robinson is resting nine stars for the clash.

I can’t think of a tougher assignment for those edge defenders, when you consider the options Cody has at his disposal:

1. Dummy and go himself, stepping off either foot;
2. Grubber in behind the defensive line;
3. Hit his left-side back-rower (Adam Elliott has been named here, but I’d love to see David Fifita unleashed out there) with a short pass;
4. When he runs that play, watch the next one where he finds Jye Gray out behind his back-rower in a block shape;
5. Or, in this same shape, he’ll present like he’s playing to Gray, but he cuts him out with a sharp tunnel ball straight to Latrell Mitchell;
6. Or, just as an added bonus, Cody could cut out all of the above, literally, with a cut-out ball that hits Alex Johnston on his chest. Just quietly, AJ should be paying Cody a 10 per cent commission on his contract.

Now, if all of that was tough to follow, or you found it difficult to make a decision, try to put yourself in Walker’s shoes. He does that dozens of times every game. He does it under fatigue.

With 210 kilos worth of NRL defenders trying to smash him, while waving that Steeden around like a magic wand, all while watching the eyes of his opposition back-rower for that first cue, that first hint of what he wants to do.

Put simply, the man is a ball-playing genius, with the same Indigenous instinct and flair we’ve seen in rugby union’s Ella brothers and the likes of Johnathan Thurston, David Peachey, Greg Inglis, Andrew Walker and Preston Campbell, to name just a few.

I’ve spoken before about how Owen Craigie was the most naturally gifted player I ever played with. We could be running one way at Newcastle, he would run the opposite direction, and somehow the ball would just bounce right up into his lap.

I’d shake my head and ask him how he knew something his 16 teammates didn’t, and Owen, he’d just smile and say something like, “I don’t know, I just knew it would.”

Some players just have the gift. For Cliffy and Cody, theirs is the ability to have five or six options and to regularly, almost always, make the right decision. Their gift is the genius of fast feet, slow hands and above all, instinct.

It was a pleasure to pick Cody’s playmaking brain this week, but the most amazing thing of all might be that he’s only met Cliffy briefly and never got to see him play. So I’m already planning a playmaking play date for the two of them. I’ll just sit in the corner, in my own personal rugby league heaven.

In the meantime, this Friday night, even you Roosters fans, don’t take your eyes off Cody Walker. Because everyone should be able to enjoy watching Michelangelo go to work.

Joey’s tip: Rabbitohs by 24
First try-scorer: Alex Johnston
Man of the match: Cameron Murray