{"id":956718,"date":"2026-11-08T05:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-08T05:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/956718\/"},"modified":"2026-11-08T05:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-08T05:34:10","slug":"perth-bears-create-grand-plan-to-sign-matt-burton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/956718\/","title":{"rendered":"Perth Bears create grand plan to sign Matt Burton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canterbury Bulldogs<\/a> star Matt Burton<\/a> is set to tour the Perth Bears<\/a> facilities as talks between the two parties progress.<\/p>\n

Burton is currently a free agent, with only 12 months remaining on his contract.<\/p>\n

News Corp recently reported that the Western Australian club could offer the Bulldog a five-year deal, worth $1 million per season.<\/p>\n

Related Coverage<\/p>\n

That would require the centre\/half to be released immediately; however, a four-year deal would see him start with the Bears in 2028 and finish in 2031.<\/p>\n

In a new report from The Daily Telegraph, Burton is heading to Perth on Sunday with his family as Mal Meninga<\/a> and the club try to convince him to join the NRL’s 18th side.<\/p>\n

Burton could sign a deal with the Bears that maximises the NRL’s salary cap exemption, and class the backline talent as a marquee signing.<\/p>\n

This would mean Burton could sign a deal with his salary starting at $1.2 million in 2028.<\/p>\n

The additional $200,000 won’t count towards the club’s salary cap.<\/p>\n

Under the NRL’s salary cap rules, the Bears can only pay one player for the next three years with the 20% exemption off the books.<\/p>\n

Perth’s pitch is to make Burton the face of the organisation and make him their first million-dollar player.<\/p>\n

According to Danny Weidler, Toby Sexton<\/a> and Josh Curran<\/a> will also be part of the pitch in persuading their former teammate to join them in Western Australia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sexton played with Burton from 2024 to 2025 before the club signed Lachlan Galvin<\/a> and brought him over during the season.<\/p>\n

Before the Galvin signing, the Bulldogs were the best-ranked team on the NRL<\/a> ladder with Burton and Sexton in the halves.<\/p>\n

Phil Gould has made it clear the Bulldogs want Burton to stay in Belmore.<\/p>\n

However, he would play centre and have to take a $400,000 pay cut per season.<\/p>\n

The Bulldogs have long-term plans in their halves with Alex Conti<\/a>, Lachlan Galvin<\/a> and Mitchell Woods<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The club also shuffled Stephen Crichton<\/a> into the halves this season while Burton moved back into the centres.<\/p>\n

Burton joined Canterbury in 2022 and helped the club reach the finals in 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n

He has also been linked to the Dragons, although the Red V will prioritise Jack Bostock<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Bulldogs missed the finals in 2026 after two seasons making the finals.<\/p>\n

If Burton wants to play five-eighth, expect Burton to leave the Bulldogs.<\/p>\n

It’s unclear at this stage if Burton will be released for 2027 or fulfill his contract.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canterbury Bulldogs star Matt Burton is set to tour the Perth Bears facilities as talks between the two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":956719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-956718","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\/956718","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=956718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/956719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=956718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=956718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=956718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}