Monster $2.5M Newcastle bid — and an “intimate dinner” — not enough to peel Pezet from Storm

Jonah Pezet has turned down a $2.5 million homecoming (of sorts), choosing the Melbourne Storm and several boiled-in contract clauses over a Kalyn Ponga-led Newcastle Knights recruitment campaign.

Pezet has today signed a four-year deal with Melbourne after sitting down with Newcastle powerbrokers and club captain Kalyn Ponga to hear the team’s pitch earlier this month.

Download Our FREE NRL App Here

Things aren’t quite as simple as Pezet staying with the southern NRL powerhouse through to 2029 though – and it’s all tied to what Jahrome Hughes does next. Should the reigning Dally M medalist decide he wants to stay at the Storm beyond his own deal, which ends in 2026, Pezet will instantly hit free agency.

It’s The Sporting Base‘s understanding the Knights had offered Pezet the starting halfback role as soon as the ’26 campaign, if not earlier if he had been released from the last year of his Melbourne agreement, but he didn’t feel he was ready.

Whether that’s patience from Pezet regarding playing for one of the league’s best or nerves about starting isn’t clear.

He may get his chance to play somewhere in 2026 either way though, with Melbourne now plotting a loan.

Akin to Harry Grant’s stint with the Wests Tigers while he waited for Cameron Smith to wrap up his Storm career, Pezet will be spruiked to another NRL team or potentially even a stronger English side in the Super League with the recruitment being he gets a certain number of first-grade games under his belt.

He would then take the Storm halfback spot in 2027, should Hughes leave or retire.

It was a big call for Pezet to turn down the Knights, not least because Ponga and several Knights negotiators took him out for what News Corp described as an “intimate dinner.” The 21-year-old came through Newcastle’s junior system between 2018 and 2020, playing in the club’s Harold Matthews and SG Ball teams.

Enter Our Weekly $250 NRL Tipping Comp Here

Since moving into the Storm’s top squad in 2023, the young gun has made 10 appearances. He’s mostly filled in at five-eighth, deputising Cameron Munster, but prefers to play as a proper seven.