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Damien Cook has emerged the big winner out of Adam Reynolds and Cody Walker's hot streak, as defences scramble to stop South Sydney's in-form halves.

Damien Cook could be forgiven for wanting Penrith to put all their attention on stopping South Sydney's red-hot halves Cody Walker and Adam Reynolds.

Because after all, for every time defences spread to cover Walker and Reynolds on the edges of the ruck, it leaves a slightly bigger gap for Cook to wreak havoc.

Cook's hooker-on-hooker battle with Apisai Koroisau looms as one of the best of Saturday night's NRL preliminary final at ANZ Stadium.

For much of this year, Koroisau has threatened to steal Cook's title as the NRL's most efficient runner out of dummy-half.

But at the right time of the season, Cook has sprung to life.

With all the hype and focus on Souths' halves, Cook has averaged a season-best 144 metres out of dummy-half in his two finals matches, busted 12 tackles, set-up four tries and scored two.

And the latter of those two performances came against a Parramatta side whose middle-third defence had conceded the second-least tries in the competition.

"He loves big games," Reynolds said.

"When we give him the opportunity to shine he does. He's jumping out of his skin at the moment.

"They (Parramatta) opened up spaces to defend me and Cody at the edges.

"When they do that the spaces in the middle become bigger and it allows him to get out and be a threat through the middle there.

"It's good to have all those options all over the field."

Cook can feel the difference too.

When the new six-again rule came in at the start of the year, everyone expected running dummy-halves like him to have a field day.

Instead, opposition teams tightened up their middle defence and made it harder for the hookers, meaning now is the first time he's felt that real freedom.

"That's one thing I have learned this year, there are so many ways teams are defending these six agains," Cook said.

"Every game is different at the moment.

"Cody is drawing that attention because he is playing so well. And Reynolds is doing such a good job for him.

"Those two together, if they are going to have the defenders on them we just have to make sure we're ready to go through the middle with our forwards."

Souths meanwhile are well aware they have to be on high alert to not afford Koroisau the same space.

While Cook has spoken this week on how much he admires Koroisau as a dummy-half, other Rabbitohs won a grand final with him as a rookie filling in for Issac Luke in 2014.

"He is a class player and he is a tough little bugger," Reynolds said.

"He has a massive influence over the team, he controls the middle and their pack.

"He is playing some great footy, he is probably one of the hookers of the year.

"We need to contain him and the halves."