{"id":901185,"date":"2026-09-22T10:40:23","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T10:40:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/901185\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T10:40:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T10:40:23","slug":"nrl-2026-south-sydney-rabbitohs-accused-of-disrespecting-cody-walker-with-low-ball-contract-extension-offer-phil-rothfield-simon-woolford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/901185\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL 2026: South Sydney Rabbitohs accused of disrespecting Cody Walker with low-ball contract extension offer, Phil Rothfield, Simon Woolford"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Sydney have been accused of disrespecting veteran five-eighth Cody Walker after it was revealed what they\u2019re apparently prepared to pay him to play on for one more season.<\/p>\n

Walker is off contract at the end of the year and the feeling around the Walker camp is that he wants to play one last season at Souths in 2027 and finish his career as a one-club player.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of drama there with Cody Walker and his future. I thought he had a pretty good year this year, Cody. You know what they\u2019ve offered him for next year? $300,000,\u201d veteran reporter Buzz Rothfield said on Fanatics TV.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they\u2019ve low-balled him. Apart from that horrible brain snap he had against Penrith (kicking Jack Cogger) I thought he was outstanding.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought he had a real good year, and I think they\u2019re taking the piss and I know he\u2019s not happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Walker played 24 games this season and was one of the club\u2019s most consistent players before he succumbed to a calf injury in the elimination final loss to Newcastle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rothfield revealed that he was on about $400,000 this season, but didn\u2019t expect to take another pay cut given his contributions to the team this year.<\/p>\n

He will be 37 when the season starts next year, but he\u2019s still got all the ball-playing skills that have helped him record 202 try assists in his 247 career games, including 26 this year.<\/p>\n

Former Raiders hooker Simon Woolford believes Souths were already getting a good deal with Walker and didn\u2019t need to dock him more pay.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought he was in their top-three players throughout the year and he stayed relatively injury-free. Obviously he went down in that last game, but injuries are injuries, that\u2019s part of rugby league,\u201d Woolford said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have thought he was worth $500,000 to $600,000 on what he produced this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat else they\u2019ve got there in the halves? I don\u2019t think they can afford to lose Cody Walker. Age is just a number, and he proved this year that he\u2019s still one of the more elite sixes in the game. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think he would feel a bit disrespected at $300,000.\u201d <\/p>\n

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Rothfield believes that Walker\u2019s post-football career is a delicate issue given he\u2019s expected to stay employed with Souths.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe knows he\u2019s got a lifetime future at Souths inside that football club, in whether it\u2019s welfare, junior development, pathways, or mentoring. But to offer him $300,000, I know his camp aren\u2019t happy about that,\u201d Rothfield said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Sydney have been accused of disrespecting veteran five-eighth Cody Walker after it was revealed what they\u2019re apparently…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":901186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-901185","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\/901185","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=901185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/901186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}