{"id":347175,"date":"2026-03-25T14:39:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T14:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/347175\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T14:39:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T14:39:11","slug":"rabbitohs-stall-contract-negotiations-with-star-playmaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/347175\/","title":{"rendered":"Rabbitohs stall contract negotiations with star playmaker"},"content":{"rendered":"

The South Sydney Rabbitohs<\/a> are in a fight to shuffle their salary cap around for the 2027 season with the arrival of superstar Payne Haas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It has seen the club stall contract negotiations with Jamie Humphreys<\/a> to figure out the best layout of the team moving into the 2027 season.<\/p>\n

Humphreys may be on the move amid fears that salary cap pressure could squeeze him out.<\/p>\n

Code Sports has reported that Jamie and his management were in talks for a one-year extension; however, chats have since stalled.<\/p>\n

Rabbitohs chief executive Blake Solly featured on Fox League, where he expressed the current situation and the difficulties in offering him an acceptable offer at this stage.<\/p>\n

“We’d like to keep Jamie here, but we also understand our challenges in terms of making him a offer for 2027 right now,” Solly said.<\/p>\n

“We’ll sit down with George, his manager, and Jamie over the next few weeks and see if we can get something done.<\/p>\n

“But we also understand that he’s a player that’s going to have a lot of options.<\/p>\n

“He’s done really well in his first game back and in pretty difficult circumstances for him, and we know he’s got a lot of upsides.<\/p>\n

“We’d love to keep him, but also respect the fact that he might want to see his future before we can get him an offer that works.<\/p>\n

Humphreys was earmarked as the long-term Adam Reynolds<\/a> replacement after Lewis Dodd’s departure, and after a transfer from the Manly Sea Eagles<\/a> and 18 stints in the red and green last year, he has since fallen down the pecking order.<\/p>\n

It has seen South Sydney birth Ashton Ward<\/a>, who has started strongly since his debut, along with Jayden Sullivan<\/a> showing powerful signs of development when given his opportunities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We’ve got a number of options, ‘Bud’ Sullivan’s done a good job there in the past, Ashton Ward<\/a>, who’s really developing as a first grader.”<\/p>\n

Although Solly agrees he will be highly sought after on the market, Humphreys may find his future at South Sydney in the newly introduced six-man bench if they can strike a deal.<\/p>\n

He is a legitimate option to become a super-sub, being able to play in the halves and hooker roles, while being physically powerful enough to fill in the lock and back row positions at a pinch.<\/p>\n

Drawing similarities to Dylan Walker<\/a>, who played all of his earlier career in centre and five-eighth positions, now playing as a middle ball-playing forward off the bench.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The South Sydney Rabbitohs are in a fight to shuffle their salary cap around for the 2027 season…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-347175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}