South Sydney halfback Adam Reynolds likely to have contract extended
South Sydney Rabbitohs League News
Date September 25, 2014 - 10:00PM
Michael Chammas
Rugby league reporter
Two months ago, it was feared Adam Reynolds was on the outer at South Sydney after he was benched, but now the club is making plans to extend his contract.
South Sydney and Reynolds' management have both indicated a desire to keep him at the club beyond the end of his 2015 contract. Both parties have agreed to put negotiations on hold until after the season, which could see Reynolds' value skyrocket if he can help lead the Rabbitohs to a long-awaited premiership.
After Reynolds orchestrated a thumping victory over Manly in week one of the finals, South Sydney coach Michael Maguire spoke about how he had transformed his game over the past six weeks. Those six weeks coincide with the night he was pulled from Pirtek Stadium when the game was on the line against Parramatta in July.
It was believed Reynolds would again make way for Luke Keary in the following week's game against Canberra, but an injury to five-eighth John Sutton in the ninth minute may have saved his season.
We'll never know what Maguire had planned for Reynolds had Sutton not gone down with injury, but he admits the humiliation of being benched has helped him produce arguably the best football of his career.
"I definitely wasn't happy," Reynolds said. "I wanted to be out there for the whole game. But in saying that it was probably a blessing in disguise. It's really made me work harder. At the time Madge said it was just part of the game and it could have went that way for the Canberra game the next week.
"You never like getting taken off, it's definitely driven my mentality to another level and it's probably a good lesson to never relax or think it's going to come to you."
Reynolds has had the weight of expectation of an entire club on his shoulders even before he made his NRL debut in 2012.
He came into the top grade as Chris Sandow's replacement, before rookie of the year honours put him in line for representative football.
He was overlooked for Origin and faltered on the big stage in last year's finals series.
Now he finds himself just 80 minutes away from a potential grand final berth for the third consecutive year.
"The expectation at this club is pretty high and you're always feeling that," Reynolds said.
"It's something that I've had to learn to grow with. That No.7 on your back, you're always going to have that expectation on your back no matter what. It's something that I've learnt to live with. Teams definitely do a lot more video on me now than they did the first year. They are still trying to figure you out that first 12 months. You have got to start changing it up every now and then to keep the opposition guessing.
"I've learnt a lot about the game," Reynolds said.
"I'm reading it a lot better than I did last year and I think that experience will help."
This finals series is the strongest indication yet that this could be the start of a Blue dynasty rather than a rare taste of glory.
At the Sydney Roosters is the exiled Blues pairing of Mitchell Pearce and James Maloney.
The future is at South Sydney with Adam Reynolds and Luke Keary, while the present is at Canterbury with Josh Reynolds and Trent Hodkinson.
At the foot of the mountains, the forgotten Jamie Soward is turning heads, doing so for the most part of the season with another forgotten New South Welshman, Peter Wallace.
Together they've helped knock out all of the halves that were involved in Queensland camps during this year's Origin series.
The four teams bundled out of the finals all have Maroons in the key playmaker role – Daly Cherry-Evans (Manly), Cooper Cronk (Melbourne), Johnathan Thurston (Cowboys) and Ben Hunt (Broncos) all upstaged by their counterparts from south of the border.
It's the Queenslanders who have long been regarded as the players with all the big game experience, but judging by the way this year's finals series has panned out, the tide is beginning to turn.
NSW now have a lot of depth in the halves, leaving Blues coach Laurie Daley in a strong position as he begins planning for the next three years of his reign
Read more:
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...t-extended-20140925-10lxwh.html#ixzz3EMf8wwCu
