McCormack began his career with the Newcastle Knights in that club's inaugural 1988 season, when he impressed the critics with his skill at five-eighth.[2] However, in the following 1989 season, McCormack – switched briefly to lock forward – suffered a "sickening" double leg fracture in the sixth game and spent the remainder of the season on the sidelines.[3] In the following two seasons McCormack, played mainly at centre, and, although doubts as to his physical fitness were removed during 1990, he lost form badly during the Knights' disappointing 1991 season and was out of first grade for nine weeks.
