{"id":58789,"date":"2021-04-16T03:24:12","date_gmt":"2021-04-16T03:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=58789"},"modified":"2021-04-16T05:58:04","modified_gmt":"2021-04-16T05:58:04","slug":"five-year-walker-deal-to-ward-off-nrl-poachers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=58789","title":{"rendered":"Five-year Walker deal to ward off NRL poachers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The future is bright for off-contract rookie Sam Walker<\/a>, and two of the game's greats think the Roosters<\/a> should already be shaping to build their long-term plans around him.<\/p>\n

"Right now? Five years," Brad Fittler told Wide World of Sports' Freddy and The Eighth<\/em><\/a> when asked what sort of contract extension the Roosters should offer Walker.<\/p>\n

"Apart from injury, he just is going to be there. You can just tell. Shies away from nothing."<\/p>\n

In 2019, the Roosters got under the guard of the Broncos and trumped interest from Rugby Australia to lure the teenager down to Bondi, with a contract that expires at the end of this season.<\/p>\n

\"NRL<\/p>\n

But both Fittler and Andrew Johns give other clubs very little chance of swooping in to poach Walker now.<\/p>\n

"He's in a great system, well-coached club, club that looks after him, great players around him, great forward pack – just let him stay there," Johns said.<\/p>\n

"He'll make his money without a doubt in the next couple of years, but initially without taking the piss demanding 900k or a million dollars."<\/p>\n

Johns said it made sense especially when you consider the lack of quality halfbacks in the NRL currently.<\/p>\n

"The halfback tree, the Lorax (a Dr. Seuss character) cut it down," he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Immortal was flabbergasted that the Broncos had allowed Walker, who went to high school in Ipswich, to slip through their net.<\/p>\n

"His dad, his two uncles played for Brisbane. Why, how he's playing for the Roosters? You can see them when they're 12, 13, 14 the exceptional, halfbacks especially," Johns said.<\/p>\n

"They should have just gone 'you're playing for us – Brisbane".<\/p>\n

While Johns sees the Roosters as strong favourites to retain Walker's services, he wouldn't rule out a Red Hill raid for the young gun.<\/p>\n

"Brisbane might come in really big for him, considering they're talking about [Tom] Dearden going to the Cowboys," he said.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Imagine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The future is bright for off-contract rookie Sam Walker, and two of the game's greats think the Roosters should already be shaping to build their […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58789"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58789"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58791,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58789\/revisions\/58791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}