John Sutton's camp are confident of securing a new contract for South Sydney's former skipper within a month. Sutton, the only player to notch 300 games for the Rabbitohs, is still unsigned a month out from the start of the NRL pre-season. While both camps have consistently said they want Sutton, 34 next month, to go around with the club for a 16th season in 2019, negotiations have dragged on for months. It's been rumoured that Souths are under salary cap pressure and would need to make space to fit their former skipper in.
Sutton's manager Steve Gillis was bullish about getting a deal done and said they don't have a plan B. "We're yet to strike a deal so we're in a holding patterns at the moment," Gillis said. "He's said he wants to play, the club has said they want him to play. But nothing's been set in stone. "We hope to have that resolved in the next month. They return to training in early November and I would think he wouldn't train without a contract." Should he not agree terms, Sutton would either be forced into retirement or into the arms of a rival club or the English Super League. Those options seem unthinkable given his standing in the South Sydney history books and the new lease on life he discovered under coach Anthony Seibold this year. A Maroubra junior, he leads the foundation club's most games list with 309, ahead of the likes of Nathan Merritt, Bob McCarthy, Craig Coleman and Eric Simms. Having debuted for South Sydney in 2004, two years after their readmission into the competition, he stuck with them through their lean years under former coaches Shaun McRae, Jason Taylor and John Lang before captaining them to their 2014 grand final win.
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