{"id":798112,"date":"2026-07-13T18:49:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T18:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/798112\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T18:49:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T18:49:16","slug":"new-nrl-deal-looms-for-south-sydney-halfback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/798112\/","title":{"rendered":"New NRL deal looms for South Sydney halfback"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ashton Ward is the NRL’s only first-choice halfback uncertain of his immediate playing future but South Sydney are unlikely to keep it that way for long.<\/p>\n

Heading into round 20, Souths’ Ward and retiring Brisbane halfback Adam Reynolds are the only first-choice No.7s without contracts for 2027.<\/p>\n

Even then, the Broncos have Ben Hunt, Jonah Pezet and Tom Duffy as halves options to partner Ezra Mam next year once Reynolds hangs up the boots.<\/p>\n

But AAP has been told the sixth-placed Rabbitohs are approaching a new deal to retain the 22-year-old, who has quietly pieced together an impressive first full NRL season.<\/p>\n

\"Ward\"<\/p>\n

Ashton Ward appears to be a big part of the Rabbitohs’ plans. (Dan Himbrechts\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

Ward is eager to remain at the Rabbitohs, who lured him from St George Illawarra after he was named the Dragons’ under-21s player of the year for 2024.<\/p>\n

“I’ve said many times that this is the place that helped me fulfil my dream of making my debut,” Ward told AAP.<\/p>\n

“I want to pay them back by getting as close as we can to making finals and hopefully going deep into it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I want to stay. This is my home.”<\/p>\n

\"NRL\"<\/p>\n

Ashton Ward suffered an injury during the Round 1 clash with the Dolphins. (AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

Ward has bounced back nicely after missing almost two months with the ankle injury he suffered in the round-one win over the Dolphins.<\/p>\n

He most recently put Junior Tatola over in Sunday’s 26-24 upset defeat of Newcastle, one of eight try assists from nine games this year.<\/p>\n

The latest victory came without veteran halves partner Cody Walker (suspension) by his side.<\/p>\n

“Wayne (Bennett, coach) sort of had a bit of a chat to me earlier in the week and he said he didn’t really want me to change too much (without Walker),” Ward said.<\/p>\n

“I just thought I played a similar job to what I usually do.”<\/p>\n

\"NRL\"<\/p>\n

Ashton Ward is making a career of playing bigger than his frame suggests. (Dean Lewins\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

It’s all left one of the NRL’s smallest players confident that he belongs at the highest level.<\/p>\n

“I’ve had it my whole life, I’ve always been one of the smallest people on the field, so you get pretty used to it,” Ward said.<\/p>\n

“You can see people eyeing you off and you can see them coming from a mile away. I just do the best that I can to put my body on the line.<\/p>\n

“I feel like I’m starting to find my feet. I’m pretty grateful for the edge that I have with big David Fifita, Jack (Wighton) and ‘Stretch’ (Campbell Graham) there. They look after me. I’m having a great year so far, I feel good.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ashton Ward is the NRL’s only first-choice halfback uncertain of his immediate playing future but South Sydney are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":798113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[184905,18743,261583,64,63,1653,761,762,158,14867,374858,85],"class_list":["post-798112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-aap-photos","tag-adam-reynolds","tag-ashton-ward","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cody-walker","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-south-sydney","tag-souths39-ward","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798112","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=798112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}