Dylan Edwards has been locked in for two more years — but the premiership-winning fullback wants to be a Panther for life.

The 26-year-old inked an extension last week that will keep him at the foot of the mountains until at least the end of 2024.

No rival clubs held talks with him — or were even on the radar — but that’s because he never had any intention of going anywhere.

I didn’t want to be a free agent or anything like that. I always wanted to stay here,” Edwards said.

The extension means Edwards will reach his 100th and potentially 150th NRL-game milestone with the club that gave him his debut back in 2016.

However, if the Bellingen Dorrigo junior has it his way he’ll finish his career a one-club player.

It means a lot,” Edwards said of his new deal.

“I’m very fortunate, obviously on the back of a bit of success. I’ve been able to play alongside a lot of the boys that I’ve played a lot of footy with so far.

“Yeah, that’d be ideal,” he added when asked if he’d like to be a Panther for life.

“But obviously it’s a few years down the track and I’ve got to play good footy. It’s cliche, but I can’t look too far ahead.”

‘Good footy’ he reckons. Well, winning a premiership with a fractured foot has surely given him a head start on that.

Without going into too much detail, Edwards recalled last season’s post-grand final celebrations as “a bit blurry” but “awesome.”

The battered and bruised Panthers got a shot at redemption after falling short in 2020 and this time they didn’t miss — no matter how many of their troops were on their last legs.

Edwards was spotted in a moon boot in the lead up to the grand final. It was later revealed by coach Ivan Cleary that he had fractured his foot about a month prior to the grand final.

He ran for a game-high of 231 metres on that fractured foot — with no painkilling injections mind you.

But despite his dominant performance, there was a moment that Edwards thought in the lead-up that maybe he’d have to watch on from the sideline.

“I wasn’t sure if I’d be right,” he recalled.

“I think after the prelim against the Storm, when I came off I was pretty sore. I had to do a bit of fitness testing throughout that (grand final week) and I hadn’t run or walked on it even so I wasn’t sure how it was going to go.

“I couldn’t have injections because the way the foot sort of worked, it was more risk of actually displacing if you were to inject and the muscles relaxed.”

Edwards, now fully recovered, isn’t one to get ahead of himself. Even when asked if the Panthers can go back-to-back he said: “we’d like to do well again this year.”

With the likes of Nathan Cleary and Brian To’o coming off their best-ever season, it’s easy to see why the Panthers can be one of the top teams again.

Charlie Staines is in the mix and while Edwards couldn’t give anything away he did say Staines had been “working pretty hard in the gym.”

As for Tago, the 19-year-old centre/second-rower has been tipped for big things and going off Edwards’ description it’s not hard to see why.

“He’s great, he’s really physical, really naturally gifted, a very strong ballrunner and he’s a really intelligent rugby league player. He reads the game well,” he said.