One of the best players in the NRL, the Newcastle Knights are aiming to keep superstar Kalyn Ponga at the club "for life" as they attempt to win their first premiership since 2001.
Signing with the Knights in 2018 from the North Queensland Cowboys, Ponga has quickly become the best player at the club and in the competition having played eight matches for the QLD Maroons between 2018 and most recently 2024.
However, this hasn't stopped multiple rumours emerging in the past surrounding his future. In the first few months of last year, there were links between Ponga and the Sydney Roosters before the Roosters and Knights shut them down.
The highest-paid player in the NRL on a reported contract worth $1.4 a season until the end of 2027, the Knights are aiming to keep Ponga at the Hunter-based club "for life" but have not yet opened talks about extending his tenure.
"We want him here for life," Knights recruitment manager Peter O'Sullivan said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.
"We haven't spoken about extending beyond 2027 because I want to get the roster into shape first. There's no rush.
"Right now he might hesitate and want to see where we are heading. And that's fair enough.
"He's spoken about his dream of winning a title here and we've got to build the right squad to achieve that.
"Kalyn loves it here. The lifestyle suits him, his mum and dad are here, he lives 100 metres from the beach and I think he's happy here.
One of the hottest properties to hit the open market alongside the likes of Adam Reynolds, Cody Walker, Daly Cherry-Evans and Te Maire Martin, Brown's future has been clouded in uncertainty over the past month.
This comes after he was offered to all 16 rival NRL teams and Rugby Australia and could decide to opt out of his current deal with the Eels due to a player-option clause in his contract.
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According to the latest reports, three NRL teams have discussed offering Brown a ten-year contract worth around $11 million to lure him away from the Parramatta Eels - one of these teams is reportedly the Knights who have shown an interest in him in the past.
"If he's serious about leaving we'd love to have him here and he'd change our footy team," O'Sullivan added.
"If Dylan is here, we go from a top eight team to a genuine hope of winning a comp. That's how highly I rate him.
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"I've been trying to sign him since he was 17 when I worked for the Warriors. He's a marvellous player and a marvellous kid. We'll see what happens."
