Source : ABC NEWS
Whenever your team is playing against Payne Haas any serious footy fan should know exactly where he is and what he is doing is at all times.
Is he winding up for a big run through the centre, maybe angling back in behind the play-the-ball? Is he lurking a pass or two wide of the ruck, trying to isolate some poor, unfortunate soul one-on-one?
Is he on the bench for a breather, a time which offers momentary relief from rugby league’s apex predator, or is he stalking the sideline, waiting to come back on for his second stint, a sight so menacing the theme from Jaws should start playing as a warning?
There is no stopping Haas, not in any way that makes a real difference — since becoming a starter for the Broncos in 2019,, he’s passed 100 metres gained with ball in hand 126 times in 139 games — so the best you can do is be aware.
A player of his stature, both physically and given the breadth of his accomplishments, should not be able to sneak up on anyone but his impending move to South Sydney for 2027 seems to have done it.
When Haas really gets going, it can feel like the ground is shaking underneath him, but this bombshell has changed the landscape more than even his charges ever could.
Haas is the best forward in the world and one of the best players of the NRL era who excels at everything you can ask for from a player in his position.
He is the great prop of his time, and in leaving the Broncos for the Rabbitohs, he has drastically transformed the course for two of the league’s biggest clubs.
For Brisbane, a future that looked like a golden path is now cast into shadow. Their 2025 premiership was the most dramatic run to glory in years, capped by three finals games that were to rugby league what dance is to movement.
Walsh and Haas are Brisbane’s two best players and unique in their brilliance. (AAP: Dan Himbrechts)
They did it on the back of a potent mix of talent and ambition, from the young and established alike. Aside from Adam Reynolds and Ben Hunt, who between them have seen 70 winters, most of the Broncos’ grand final 17 can be broken into two groups.
You have players like Haas, Reece Walsh, Pat Carrigan and Kotoni Staggs, who are in the prime of their careers and can expect to stay that way for some time to come.
For Haas and Walsh, two of this sport’s greatest talents, those primes have started to look like something you tell the grandkids you were there to see.
Then there’s the younger contingent, who are still searching for the limits of their own potential.
The likes of Deine Mariner, Josiah Karapani, Brendan Piakua and Xavier Willison are still just getting started — not one of them has played 60 NRL matches — but each of them played a key role in the finals run and for each of them, the best should still be yet to come.
Throw in the signing of Jonah Pezet, the most coveted young half on the market, for 2027, which future-proofs the roster against Reynolds and Hunt’s potential retirement and the Broncos looked to have performed the twin-track alchemy that makes historic feats feel within the grasp.
A second premiership this year is very possible because all the pieces are still there.
When some players sign a year in advance, their exit can be like a cowboy shot in the gut, staggering towards the saloon door, only it takes them a full season to get there.
That does not seem a likely fate for Haas. He only knows one way and will again be the rock on which the Broncos build so many things.
Beyond that, it seems as though Brisbane might have used up all the perfect.
Once they rebound from this dagger, they will enter the transfer market with fat stacks and their glamour restored, and because they are the Broncos, they will likely go big game hunting.
Willison shapes as the natural replacement for Haas in Brisbane’s front row. (AAP: Dave Hunt)
Internally, Willison seems the ideal candidate to step forward as the lead horse, and some of the football he played through 2025 showed he can do it at a high level.
But there are high levels, and there is Payne Haas’s level. Just as there are many good fullbacks and a few great ones, but there is only one like Walsh, Haas exists alone.
That greatness is why South Sydney’s fortunes have been just as rapidly transformed. Haas is the best player they have signed since Greg Inglis in 2011 — who also spurned the Broncos to come to Redfern — and they will hope he can have a similar effect.
But it’s difficult to know what Haas will walk into because right now the Rabbitohs are one of those optical illusion tricks – there’s a serious team in there, but only from a certain angle, and you need to relax your eyes.
There’s talent — the kind of huge, screaming talent that drops jaws and fills highlight reels — without question, but how it all fits together is a puzzle we’re yet to see completed.
With key players changing positions and returning from injury, South Sydney face an uncertain season. (AAP: Dan Himbrechts)
For the first time since joining the club, Latrell Mitchell will not be the fulcrum of the team after moving from fullback to centre, which would on its own be a massive structural change, but several other players, new and old, find themselves facing new realities in 2026.
Cody Walker turned 36 last month and is coming off an injury-plagued season of his career, Cameron Murray only managed one game in 2025 after an Achilles problem, and Campbell Graham has played 11 matches across the last two campaigns.
David Fifita, he of maybe the greatest athletic gifts of all and reportedly a big factor in landing Haas, is rebuilding his career after his time at the Gold Coast ended with an equal mix of bung ankles and misery.
David Fifita is one of a number of Rabbitohs players looking for a fresh start. (Getty Images: Chris Hyde)
In a more serious way, Brandon Smith is trying to do the same after arriving mid-season last year.
That’s a lot of high-profile talent trying to work things out at once, and there are so many moving parts — especially given the question marks at hooker and halfback — that the South Sydney we know today will be unrecognisable from what Haas walks into in 2027.
But they had better work it out, because they are getting Haas and if you land a player like that, it’s a sin to let their work go to waste.
Like Brisbane, the Rabbitohs still have much to do, but Haas is on the horizon, towering above all, and between there and here, South Sydney must navigate stormy seas.
Their reward could be a chance at paradise, and Haas can take them there, but they need to get through the journey first. Right now, they’re good on paper but games aren’t played on paper. They’re taking some big swings this year, and they don’t all need to hit, but at least a few do.
After three seasons out of the finals and back-to-back bottom-four finishes, the Rabbitohs must have something for him to lift in the first place because Haas isn’t Superman, even if he plays like it sometimes.
What awaits Haas when he arrives at South Sydney and what he leaves behind in Brisbane will dominate the discourse through his final year as a Bronco.
Every moment will be infused with the knowledge that through Haas, so much about both clubs will soon change.
As the shock-waves of this moment settle, the Broncos will look to get the last of what they can from his greatness as the Rabbitohs try and rise to it as Haas, in both present and future, defines what is possible.
From a football perspective, everyone will know where he is and what he’s doing, which is how it should be for the greats. They demand our full attention at all times.
Sunday’s earthquake might have been out of nowhere but Haas and his impact are impossible to miss.
