Sydney Roosters co-captain Jake Friend is keen to extend his deal with the club.
The 29-year old is coming off an injury plagued season but is in talks with the club for an extension beyond next season.
Friend is confident he still some good footy ahead of him.
"Obviously I'd love to get another year or two on the back-end of next [season], but we'll see what happens," Friend told The Sydney Morning Herald on Monday.
The veteran hooker believes his body is back to full strength as he embarks on his 13th pre-season with the Tricolours to try and help deliver a third-straight premiership.
"Obviously [it was] tough watching last year. But definitely, for the rest of my body, the injury seems to be really good," Friend said.
"All the scans are positive. So going into next year, that [arm] should be all fine and the rest of me has had a pretty good rest. I feel fresh and never been [more] excited to get back into training after not having as much footy during the year."
Friend added that he reached out to Latrell Mitchell who returned for pre-season last week but won't join rejoin the squad until the new year.
"He seemed fine to me. He's enjoying time with his family and I think that's great for him. He needs that after a big season," Friend said. "He's got a decision to make and that'll be done over the Christmas break, I'd say.
The news is Friend is actually signing with all his mates at souths.
Lol I’ll pay that well played
They’ll probably do to him what they did to Pearce.
Verrills is now the better hooker. So they’ll just freeze Friend out & not promise him any first grade games at all. Then hope he leaves before the start of the next season.
That’s how they treat their faithful ,long term players.
ClownOfDivide, thats not how they treated Pearce who still to this day is a better halfback than your Origin flop Cleary will ever be.
Pearce played every game barring one or two games through injury in his last season right up until the 2017 preliminary final. Then on his own decision after Robo wanted him to stay and learn from the master Cooper Cronk, Perce could not eliminate his pride and walked in the direction pointed by his halves coach Johns to Newcastle costing himself two premierships over pride.
ClownOfDivde you goose, get your facts straight. Perhaps you could throw your pride away and admit I was right that Pearce would play Origin this year after you fought tooth and nail that he would not.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
As per usual Space Cadet…. you know nothing.
Decent player in his day but injuries are ensuring they coming to an end. It happens to every player not sungling him out but its just about his time. These things happen.
Singling
EastOfDivide
December 17, 2019 at 6:31 pm
“That’s how they treat their faithful ,long term players.”
Awaken from your slumber EastOfDivide. Your Penrith Panthers have been sacking multi players mid season over multi years. You dear lad have a very short memory.
I bet he ends up at the Broncos
Friend is a good back up for 50k a year.
Might struggle to get that.
You should use Charlie Carp as your next handle, WoodSop. If you were a fish, you’d be hooked & reeled in in no time.