Off-contract Jack Bird has made his wishes clear: He wants to keep playing for the St George Illawarra Dragons and believes his “best footy” is still yet to come as he settles into his second-rower role under Hook’s tutelage.
Bird is off-contract next year and is deep in renewal negotiations with the Dragons.
The star’s boyhood club tabled him an offer at the tail-end of last season, salted with bonuses and offering around $550k a year. The renewal would have seen Bird stay at the club until at least 2024 and give him a strong three years to settle into his new ball-playing second-rower role coach Anthony Griffin has swapped him to.
Bird’s management didn’t accept the deal in a short period of time, however, and Red V powerbrokers withdrew the papers. Following that late 2021 loggerhead, Bird’s agent began testing the waters in the NRL.
Now, just recently, reports suggest the Dragons have come back.
The club’s latest deal shakes out similarly to their 2021 offer. They want to pay Bird between $550k and $600,00k at most, and are angling for a two-year agreement. The 27-year-old’s agent expects a little different. He wants $2 million across three years for his off-contract star and suggested similar to the Eels just last week.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, who reported part of the ongoing negotiation on Tuesday, the Dragons are “privately confident their latest offer will be enough to keep him at the club.”
If they have come back, Bird says he’s not heard it. As far as he’s concerned, the Dragons are his number-one option and where he wants to play out the next few years of his rugby league career, but he wants some loyalty back from the club too. He’s chasing that extra year on his deal — not the price hike the media claimed last season.
“Rumours say I rejected it because of money, that is far from the truth,” he said.
“The Dragons offered me a deal, they gave me five days to decide and I wasn’t ready to make a decision then, (so) they pulled it off the table. I didn’t really have a decision to make then, I had to wait until they were ready to offer me another deal.
“To be honest I don’t even know if they’ve offered me another deal [now],” he revealed to journalists today. “There’s rumours saying they’ve offered me a contract, but I haven’t had anything in front of me.
Whether there’s a deal coming down the pipeline or not, Bird wants just one thing: “I’ve made it clear I want to stay here, I want to play for the Dragons. Hopefully, there is an offer there for me.”
Bird has had a nasty run of injuries in the past few years, playing just 17 games between 2018 and 2020. His move north to join the Broncos was an unmitigated disaster for both parties, with the 27-year-old in the physio room nine days out of every ten.
Returning to the Dragons in 2021 acted as a circuit-breaker for the 2016 champion though. He re-joined his boyhood club, donned the Red V, and managed to play 22 games as St George Illawarra slid out of a finals hunt late-on in the year. He ended up watching the playoffs from the sidelines, but Bird was still happy — he was back playing again.
Now he wants to know that can continue until he hits his 30s, at least.
“I want some security behind my football,” he admits. “I’ve had some injuries that have nearly ruined my career, so I just want a little bit of security behind me, and I want to be a part of this club’s future. I’m turning 27 this week, if I get a three-year deal it will take me to 30. Then I can sit down with my family, figure out what’s next for us.
“But I still feel my best footy is in front of me. I know I want to do that here at the Dragons.”
