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While many expected him to finish up at the end of 2025, Walker is still one of the elite playmakers of the competition on his day. But recent injury issues have provided more uncertainty on how long he will remain in the NRL<\/p>\n
\u2018To be fair, I haven\u2019t really thought about that. It\u2019s not something that I\u2019m going to think about too often,\u201d Walker said on Friday at an announcement which saw The USANA True Health Foundation donate $50,000 to Souths Cares.<\/p>\n
A five-time NSW Blues representative, he revealed that a decision on his future will depend entirely on how his body holds up during the early stages of this year\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll see how the season goes. We\u2019ll see about 10 to 12 games in and see how the bodies holding up and we\u2019ll make a decision together as a club.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll just see what happens. I\u2019ve given it no thought.\u201d <\/p>\n
Dominant Souths put Manly to the sword | 02:58<\/p>\n
Admitting that a decision is likely to be made around the Round 10 or Round 12 mark, Walker enters this year\u2019s campaign in spectacular form after a brilliant showing against the Manly Sea Eagles during the NRL Pre-Season Challenge.<\/p>\n
Despite having limited minutes on the field, the 36-year-old had 101 running metres, eight tackle busts, three line-breaks and one try to his name.<\/p>\n
He also combined superbly down the left edge with recruit David Fifita and Latrell Mitchell who has made the transition from fullback to the centres.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve done a good, solid six-week block leading into Christmas, then I was able to do the next four weeks,\u201d Walker said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think in previous years I\u2019ve probably gotten to after Christmas and I\u2019ve picked up a little calf injury and then I haven\u2019t been able to have a trial (match).<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich then (means) I\u2019m limping into Round 1. It\u2019s been a really good pre-season for me on a personal level and it was really good to see the boys perform in the Charity Shield and then back it up against Manly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith & Katoa under injury clouds | 01:09<\/p>\n
As Walker and the Rabbitohs prepare to face the Dolphins in Round 1, they will be without stalwart forwards Brandon Smith and Jai Arrow due to injury.<\/p>\n
Smith is set to miss the opening couple of rounds after undergoing scans earlier in the week on his calf, but there is no timeline on when Arrow is expected to return as he returns from a neck and shoulder injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just being really careful with Jai. Giving him the right time to wait for results and not pushing him to do anything.\u201d Walker added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe club, the players and the coach and staff are all behind him and just fingers crossed that he gets some good results over the next couple of days.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got a lot of time for him. I\u2019m still spraying him at the moment so nothing\u2019s really changed there but look I really care for Jai.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love him and his family and hopefully we can get some good news over the next couple of weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of seven South Sydney Rabbitohs players that off-contract at the end of the 2026 season, star five-eighth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-506736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506736","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=506736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}