I would probably lean towards yes based on the evidence provided by Quade.
Deans asked him to play through a knee injury for a 2012 game against Argentina and then said in a press conference he would have benched his playmaker if he had enough reserves. Cooper helped steer the team to a 23-19 fight-back win on the Gold Coast.
"I hurt my knee in one of the training sessions and told the management I had a bit of floating cartilage. I said, 'I don't know if I can play', they said, 'No you're sweet, you can get surgery next week in the week off, this is the last week and we need to win it'," Cooper said.
"I went into the game and I couldn't really kick because every time I kicked that bit of cartilage would get stuck in my joint. Willy [Genia], off the kick-off, threw the ball to me, I hesitated to kick and it and ended up getting charged down.
"We won the game and in the media [conference, post-match] Robbie said to the media, 'If we had a reserve to bring on' - all our boys got injured - 'I would have hooked Quade'. "So we won the game, I'd just played through an injury he knew about, so I felt really let down and embarrassed.