After shaking off some pre-season injury niggles Cronulla captain Paul Gallen will give himself the first month or two of the season to make a call on his future.
The off-contract 34-year-old eventually signed on for an extra season at the club late last year but is contemplating going round once more in 2017.
"I haven't decided what I'm doing to be honest. I'm just going to give it the first month or six weeks to see where it's at," Gallen said.
"Physically I feel really good at the moment. One thing about me, I never wake up in the morning upset I've got to go to training. I love going to training – I still love the game. If my body holds up the first 4-6 weeks and I'm feeling good I might speak to my manager and see what can happen. I'm just going to see how I'm going the first month or two months of the comp but I haven't decided at this stage I'm going to retire."
A minor calf setback put Gallen out of training for a few weeks, a stint he said may even help him start the season fresher than he may have otherwise after barely having a full pre-season over the past decade due to international commitments.
"I did come back this [pre-season] mid-November, didn't miss a session up til Christmas and was going really well and then tore my calf in December and only just made the fight [a victory over Herman Ene Purcell on January 29], was ok after that then came back the next week and aggravated it again the next week at training so I haven't really done a lot at all.
"[I've had] just one full week's training leading into last week's trial game [a 30-all draw against Wests Tigers] and managed to get about 25-30 minutes out of the trial game and now I feel good.
"I think it's been good I didn't do much during January because it will keep me fresh for the year. Whereas the other boys are peak fitness and ready to go I think it's going to keep me fresher coming into the middle and back end of this year."
