FORMER Knights prop Kade Snowden has ruled out returning to his NRL home town - for now.
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The monolithic metre-eater continued his explosive start to the season with a dominant display in Cronulla's 26-6 blitz of Newcastle.
Snowden broke nine tackles and made 149 metres from 15 runs, capping his man-of-the-match effort with a bullocking try under the posts in the 73rd minute to stretch Cronulla's lead to 26-0.
Unwanted by former Knights mentor Brian Smith at the end of 2007, Snowden joined the Sharks and has honed his game, and his hulking 112-kilogram, 190-centimetre frame, under Ricky Stuart.
The 23-year-old Belmont North junior is contracted to the Sharks until the end of next year and wants to extend his stay in the Shire, dismissing recent media reports linking him to Newcastle.
"A few people have asked me about that, and that was the first thing I knew about it, so I don't know where that came from," Snowden said in a buoyant Cronulla dressing room.
"I've got another year here next year and I love it here.
"I'd always love to go back and finish at Newcastle.
"But I'm having a ball here and I'll probably stay here for a little bit longer.
"It's a good bunch of blokes and we all stick together."
Stuart said Snowden, who has played 47 games for the Sharks, had developed into one of their most consistent players.
"He's been in great form for a long time. For a player to be so consistently in good form in this competition is a credit to the kid," Stuart said.
"He's got a big future in front of him. I've said that for the last 18 months, and it's not, 'I told you so', I'm just amazed by the consistency of his performance.
"They're always good, if they're not great."
Snowden is still friends with many of his former Newcastle teammates and hopes they have a good season but said the Sharks, after successive lopsided losses to Brisbane and Manly, needed the win on Saturday night more than the Knights did.
"They're a good bunch of blokes and I know them well, and I wish them all well, but it's always good to beat them, and we really needed that this week," he said.
A former Australian Schoolboys captain who played for NSW teams in State of Origin curtain-raisers while progressing through Newcastle's junior ranks, Snowden hopes to break into the senior representative ranks this season.
"My goal at the start of this year was to keep playing as well as I was at the end of last year and try to make the Country side, then anything after that I'd just be stoked with," he said.
"I reckon I've been pretty consistent - just trying my hardest - and hopefully the selectors will see that and give me a chance."
