{"id":580187,"date":"2026-04-02T06:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T06:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/580187\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T06:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T06:37:11","slug":"south-sydney-great-nathan-merritt-given-12-months-to-live-cancer-battle-merritt-to-welcome-rabbitohs-onto-field-against-bulldogs-wayne-bennett-tribute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/580187\/","title":{"rendered":"South Sydney great Nathan Merritt given 12 months to live, cancer battle, Merritt to welcome Rabbitohs onto field against Bulldogs, Wayne Bennett tribute"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rabbitohs will have no shortage of motivation on Good Friday with club legend Nathan Merritt to ring the Legacy Bell as he continues his inspirational battle with stage four cancer in his oesophagus and liver.<\/a><\/p>\n

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The 42-year-old will welcome South Sydney onto the field for their game against the Bulldogs in the annual clash, with the try-scoring machine recently revealing that he only has 12 months to live.<\/p>\n

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He has been undergoing chemotherapy for stage four cancer of the liver and oesophagus.<\/p>\n

The club is calling on their fans to get to Accor Stadium to support the legendary winger who scored 146 tries for the Rabbitohs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019ll be a wonderful moment for him and the game and all Souths supporters, so it\u2019s another reason why we want to see them all there,\u201d South Sydney coach Wayne Bennett said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a great player for this club and has a tough time in front of him, but the club and the fans will be supportive of him as they have been always.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s make it a nice day for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Merritt this week opened up on the battle ahead of him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will be lucky to get past 12 months.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like your soul has been taken away. There are nights where I have my little breakdowns and think about my kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how many more football games I will be going to after this one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nathan Merritt will ring the club\u2019s Legacy Bell ahead of the game against Canterbury. Picture: Brett CostelloSource: News Corp Australia<\/p>\n

The Rabbitohs are coming off the bye and were victorious in round three, although Bennett wasn\u2019t happy with the performance.<\/p>\n

The veteran coach was very negative in the post-match press conference following the win over the Wests Tigers and says discipline is the one area they must fix. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still not happy with the performance, that hasn\u2019t changed,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s long gone now and we\u2019ve got a tremendous game tomorrow. There\u2019ll be a huge crowd and lots of Rabbitohs supporters there wanting to see us play.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bunnies get winger Campbell Graham back from the shoulder injury that kept him out of the Tigers win, with Bennett praising his resilience after battling a string of long-term setbacks. <\/p>\n

\u201cHis whole physique has changed with the amount of rehab he\u2019s had to do with his back, calf muscles and shoulders,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is resilient and it\u2019s a credit to him the way that he wants to still play and put himself through it all.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe love having him play with us. We\u2019re all in a better place when we know he\u2019s playing compared to when he\u2019s not playing. He brings a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brandon Smith hasn\u2019t been given the green light to play on Friday, but the hooker will play against the Raiders next week as he continues to recover from a calf complaint that has delayed the start of his season. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s really close (to a return) and he was really close to playing this week,\u201d Bennett said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019ve decided to give him another week. He\u2019ll definitely go to Perth.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rabbitohs will have no shortage of motivation on Good Friday with club legend Nathan Merritt to ring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[284292,63,689,14868,14451,51617,5084,32549,25907,37308,43,49979,226214,673,44,677,46,4873,3495,78204,41,39,42,40,284398,22398,1651,3439,4515],"class_list":["post-580187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-annual-clash","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-brandon-mychal-smith","tag-calf-complaint","tag-calf-muscles","tag-campbell-graham","tag-cancer-battle","tag-canterbury","tag-football-games","tag-headlines","tag-martin-gabor","tag-nathan-merritt","tag-new-south-wales","tag-news","tag-oceania","tag-perth","tag-post-match-press-conference","tag-shoulder-injury","tag-terminal-cancer","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-touching-message","tag-veteran-coach","tag-wayne-bennett","tag-western-australia","tag-wests-tigers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580187","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=580187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}