{"id":352833,"date":"2025-12-17T00:44:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T00:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/352833\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T00:44:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T00:44:08","slug":"mika-muliaina-an-emerging-rugby-talent-signs-with-the-highlanders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/352833\/","title":{"rendered":"Mika Muliaina an emerging rugby talent signs with the Highlanders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Highlanders have confirmed the signing of young first-five Mika Muliaina on a three-year contract starting in 2027, securing one of the region\u2019s most highly regarded emerging talents.<\/p>\n<p>A proud Southlander, Muliaina has progressed through the Highlanders High Performance Programme and is currently on a national development contract.<\/p>\n<p>Under the agreement, he will train with the Highlanders squad during the 2026 season before stepping into the Super Rugby environment the following year.<\/p>\n<p>The 18-year-old enjoyed a breakout 2025 campaign, which began with his performances for the Highlanders Under 20 side at the National Tournament in Taup\u014d.<\/p>\n<p>Muliaina comes from a strong rugby lineage. <\/p>\n<p>His uncle, Mills Muliaina, is a former Chiefs and All Blacks fullback who played 100 Tests for the All Blacks, while both his father and uncle also represented Southland at the provincial level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Highlanders have confirmed the signing of young first-five Mika Muliaina on a three-year contract starting in 2027,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,2633,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-352833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-rugby-union","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}