Million Dollar Man: Scorned by Souths, it's Reynolds to the rescue in Brisbane

What do you suppose South Sydney know about Adam Reynolds that the rest of us don’t?

As he headed into the final year of his deal at the Rabbitohs in 2021, the average punter assumed the club captain would be re-signed.

Reynolds grew up across the road from Redfern Oval, won a title with the club in 2014, would claim the club’s point-scoring record in ’21, and seemingly had no interest in being anything but a one-club player.

Cooper Cronk may have had a point when in March he highlighted the fact Reynolds had taken Souths “to three prelims in the last three years and failed” but, while undoubtedly frustrating, getting to three prelims in a row was a damn sight better than any club bar the Roosters or Storm could claim.

So it’s not like the Bunnies were in a position to sign a better halfback for 2022 onward.

Million Dollar Man series
A look at each club’s million-dollar man – the player broadly acknowledged to be taking up the largest individual chunk of the salary cap (even if they aren’t actually quite grossing seven figures).
» Can Tevita Pangai Jr finally put it all together at the Bulldogs?
» An off year or the beginning of the end for Jason Taumalolo?

Nonetheless, when negotiations began for continuing Reynolds’ time in the cardinal and myrtle, the club countered their skipper’s desire for a three-year deal with a one-year offer.

And they refused to budge.

(Photo by Speed Media/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Apparently there was trepidation about signing an ageing warrior to a long-term deal, Souths having been burnt by doing just that for Sam Burgess – as if a halfback was a like-for-like comparison with a middle forward who famously played an entire grand final with a smashed face.

We also got back-channel information that Reynolds was battling some sort of long-term injury, although the fact he has played at least 21 games every year since 2017 is evidence of his durability.

In fact, across his ten seasons in the top flight, Reynolds has a mean of more than 23 club games a season – that’s better than 355-game legend Darren Lockyer averaged across his career.

Add a match-winning percentage of 63.64, successfully slotting goals at more than 82 per cent and five matches for his state, and you’ve got all the ingredients of an elite halfback, worthy of signing up for at least two years.

Nup. Souths said one year, then pretended to come to the party by offering one with a second-year option in their favour – which, you may have recognised, is actually still just a one-year deal for the player.

So Reynolds took his services to the market and the Broncos were more than happy to offer the three years he desired, a deal reported to be worth the better part of a mill a year, and with the responsibility and profile of being named club captain (which may or may not have been promised in negotiations).

Despite doing the deal in May, Reynolds maintained his focus for 2021, guiding his beloved Bunnies to the grand final and but for a missed sideline conversion attempt – a miss that goal-kicking legend Daryl Halligan blamed on the No.7 striking the ball too well – he may even have been heading to Queensland with a second premiership ring.

Regardless, he arrives at Suncorp Stadium with arguably less pressure on his shoulders than had he done a deal to remain in red and green.

Souths are coming off a second-place finish, meaning the only way this year can be considered a success is by going one better, yet they’ll have to win the hardest rugby league competition in the world having parted ways with their coach Wayne Bennett and quality players such as Dane Gagai, Benji Marshall and Jaydn Su’A.

(Photo by Mark Evans/Getty Images)

Meanwhile, after hitting rock bottom in 2020, the Broncos may be in the midst of a rebuild but by the end of last season, the signs were looking promising.

Payne Haas is in the conversation for being the best prop in the game, a fit Kotoni Staggs scores the best tries in the comp (he’s got an award to prove it), Kurt Capewell provides Origin and premiership-winning quality to the pack, and while David Fifita and Tevita Pangai Jr may have left, the production line just keeps churning out young talent like TC Robati, Selwyn Cobbo and Brendan Piakura.

The ongoing knock on the Broncos was that they were a Ferrari without a steering wheel – terrifying pace and power, just without the means to properly harness it.

Which is why the suits at Red Hill would have been dancing in the street when they heard Souths were reluctant to give their organising halfback the contract he wanted.

Reynolds is exactly what’s needed at the Broncos. And while he need only ask his former coach Anthony Seibold about what the weight of expectation is like in the Queensland capital, he’s arriving at a team that came third-last in 2021 and dead last in 2020 – it’s not like any sane person expects him to win a grand final in 2022.

An improvement on last year’s seven wins for the season would have to be considered a success.

And that’s the bare minimum a winner like Adam Reynolds would expect of a team he’s steering around anyway.

(Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

Best-case scenario
Adam Reynolds’ perfect season begins with a win on March 11, as he plays his first game for Brisbane against the only club he’s ever represented.

Starting his 2022 by thumping his former teammates and giving the finger to the paper-pushers who effectively forced him out the door would be just about all he’d want.

But to then lead the Broncos to a winning season, which in recent years has been enough to make the eight, would make the little champion an instant hero in his new home city.

Worst-case scenario
Maybe Souths were right all along – Reynolds is secretly held together with masking tape and only worthy of year-at-a-time deals – and they were simply too classy to publicly disparage someone who has surely earned Russell Crowe’s ultimate compliment: “a Son of South Sydney”.

Disasters don’t come worse than what we saw in Brisbane in 2020 but for Reynolds to limp into the back-end of 2022 with his team floundering at the bottom of the table – and the Broncos all too aware they’re paying him a huge chunk of their salary cap to do the same thing for two more years – would be up there with the Seibold stinker.