{"id":248951,"date":"2025-10-29T15:49:21","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T15:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/248951\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T15:49:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T15:49:21","slug":"former-1m-mans-nrl-move-complete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/248951\/","title":{"rendered":"Former $1m man\u2019s NRL move complete"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">David Fifita is expected to add a \u201cnew dimension\u201d to the South Sydney forward pack after his release form the final year of his deal with the Gold Coast Titans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Fifita, the Dally M second rower of the year in 2023, has joined the Rabbitohs on a two-year deal after being lured by coach Wayne Bennett to the club.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The 25-year-old played 90 games for the Titans, where he was on a deal worth up to $1m a season, and 134 NRL games after his debut with the Broncos in 2018.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">But he managed only eight games in 2025 due to a recurring ankle injury and left with the club\u2019s full support.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Titans head coach Josh Hannay confirmed the club\u2019s support of Fifita\u2019s departure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThe club wants to see David happy and playing football and a new opportunity will give him a chance to do that,\u201d Hannay said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThe entire club wish him well moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Fifita had stayed with the Titans after backing down on a move to the Sydney Roosters.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"NRL Rd 8 - Cowboys v Titans\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/bc0d41602f914473598e5198a0605509.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>David Fifita is moving to South Sydney. Picture: Ian Hitchcock\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">But he\u2019ll join the Rabbitohs for the start of pre-season next month and head of recruitment Mark Ellison lauded the impact Fifita, a former Queensland State of Origin representative, could have at his new club.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cDavid will provide a new dimension to our forward pack and we are looking forward to seeing him in the red and green,\u201d Ellison said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cHe has shown he has what it takes to dominate NRL matches and can match it with the best at State of Origin and Test match level.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cHe made his NRL debut under Wayne (Rabbitohs head coach Wayne Bennett) at the Broncos and he has always been regarded as one of the game\u2019s best when he is at his best.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cHe will be a fantastic inclusion in our squad going forward and will provide us with a different style of player in our forwards rotation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cWe look forward to having him join us for pre-season training next month.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Fifita is expected to add a \u201cnew dimension\u201d to the South Sydney forward pack after his release&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,4509,147737,4612,18387,40695,761,762,158,14867,85,1651],"class_list":{"0":"post-248951","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-david-fifita","11":"tag-forward-pack","12":"tag-gold-coast-titans","13":"tag-josh-hannay","14":"tag-mark-ellison","15":"tag-national-rugby-league","16":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","17":"tag-nrl","18":"tag-south-sydney","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-wayne-bennett"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}