Source :- THE AGE NEWS
As is often the case when somebody important makes a monumental decision and nobody knows why, the Australian rugby league clique has spent the past 24 hours filling the void with their own theories about why Payne Haas would do such a thing.
Here’s another one: his dad, Gregor, is a mad Souths fan and the club might well have been on his mind for a decade.
It was 10 years ago that a 16-year-old Haas sat in a Redfern cafe with Sam Burgess and Michael Maguire, having flown with his father from the Gold Coast to meet the Rabbitohs – one of the dozen or so NRL clubs chasing a young talent destined for a big future.
Burgess, of famed facial fractures and the Clive Churchill Medal glory in the club’s drought-breaking 2014 grand final triumph, had the teenage school boy in front of him so awe-struck that, when the English forward offered to watch his GIO Cup final with Keebra Sports High in Penrith that week, Haas was just about ready to sign on the dotted line.
Except that Burgess didn’t show.
“Before the game I was looking around for him,” Haas told NRL.com in 2019. “But he didn’t come. I was a kid. It hurt me a bit. I used to love Souths. My dad’s a mad Souths fan. And Sam Burgess was someone I grew up idolising. It’s funny how things impact you when you’re young.
Sam Burgess with Russell Crowe after South Sydney won the 2014 grand final.Credit: NRL Photos
“I was pretty close to signing there. The only reason I didn’t go any further with it was because Sammy told me he was going to come to my game. But he brushed me so I was like, ‘Oh, don’t worry then. I’m not coming to South Sydney’.”
We know the rest: Haas was set to sign with Melbourne until a phone call from Wayne Bennett convinced him Brisbane was a better bet.
The obvious follow-on theory involves a preference to play under Bennett, or else how did Maguire manage to let the prop of a generation slip out from under him again? But of course, this is all conjecture, just like every other hypothesis in circulation. Until Haas publicly explains why he has decided to leave the Broncos at the end of the season for the unlikely destination of South Sydney, Sunday’s bolt from the blue has no why.
Payne Haas at Broncos training last week.Credit: Getty Images
Not the influence of his dad’s fandom, nor his relationship with Bennett or the overtures of David Fifita and Latrell Mitchell (or Russell Crowe?). Not even evidence of Haas’ recent restlessness, suggestions of a Glenn Lazarus-style legacy move, or a half-speculated clause in his three-year contract allowing him to leave and join Rugby 360 when and if it finally launches in 2028. This is the shock talking; the emotion of an unforeseen defection to an unexpected rival and all the flow-on effects that entails.
The ripples from this deal – should it survive the 10-day cooling-off period – are so significant they are competition-altering, and particularly consequential for the two clubs and their respective head coaches.
For Souths, this is the big prize. The Greg Inglis. The Cooper Cronk. The Lazarus. This is the historical powerhouse with two successive bottom-four finishes starting the 2026 season on the promise of a guaranteed GOAT, and one in the prime of his career (Haas will be 27 when he lands at Redfern).
This year already has top-eight potential, but the knowledge of Haas’ arrival for 2027 will give Souths a sense of gravity. A self-fulfilling attractiveness with recruitment power written all over it, and rivals will undoubtedly be doing what they can to keep their up-and-coming halfbacks and hookers on the books.
Right now, the Rabbitohs are one of those can-be-good sides without the capacity to consistently execute, but sometimes a figure of appropriate stardom can lift the collective. And if the next thing to mind is Latrell Mitchell, perhaps someone even bigger could take the pressure off. A team not built around you can do wonders for stability. Similarly, a reunion with a schoolboy teammate may yet facilitate a Fifita renaissance.
The future of Rabbitohs coach Wayne Bennett could be tied to that of Payne Haas.Credit: Sam Mooy
Bennett, meanwhile, has once again delivered a masterstroke – not only for his club but also for himself. A potential premiership winner who could evoke new glory years and extend his own coaching career.
Bennett is 76 and signed until the end of 2027, with the potential for another year in 2028. The Haas coup puts him in the box seat for a longer extension, and ties the future commitments of Bennett and Haas together almost inextricably. Unless Haas departs mid-contract, Bennett’s links with the incoming Papua New Guinea franchise appear almost dead in the water.
This level of power is not available to Maguire, whose resurgence has just suffered a blow beyond devastating. A coach who had to reinvent himself after his 43-year South Sydney premiership breakthrough and downfall, and those well-documented Tigers years. Who did so successfully with New Zealand and then the NSW Blues, and finally Brisbane’s dramatic run to 2025 NRL glory. The Broncos had been poised to embark on a dynasty.
But there are understandable questions about how Maguire did not manage to keep one of the biggest stars of his show, and whether everything possible was offered. There are two indispensable players on the Broncos roster and one is Haas. The other, Reece Walsh, is contracted until 2029. And while Haas will no doubt see out this season in characteristically formidable form, his very presence casts a shadow over a critical title defence.
Just as his presence on Monday’s team flight to England for the World Club Challenge could be awkward.
