{"id":361910,"date":"2025-12-21T05:31:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T05:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/361910\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T05:31:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T05:31:08","slug":"former-four-club-nrl-player-on-the-move-again-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/361910\/","title":{"rendered":"Former four-club NRL player on the move again – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former NRL<\/a> journeyman Will Smith<\/a> will continue his career into 2026 after signing with Lakes United in the local Newcastle competition.<\/p>\n

One of Australia’s strongest regional competitions is home to a host of ex-NRL talent, and Smith has been part of the Wests club in the competition over the last two seasons.<\/p>\n

He has now elected to move to Lakes United where he will join fellow ex-NRL players Sione and Peter Mata’utia<\/a>, with the club recently confirming his addition alongside brother Matt.<\/p>\n

Smith commenced his professional career with the Penrith Panthers<\/a> in 2014, playing 21 games for the club. He was perhaps most well known for his stint at the Parramatta Eels<\/a>, where he managed 54 games between 2017 and 2021.<\/p>\n

The now 33-year-old struggled after that, spending half a season at the Gold Coast Titans<\/a>, half a season at Hull FC<\/a> and a season at the Wests Tigers<\/a> for a combined total of 20 top-flight matches.<\/p>\n

Smith predominantly played centre for Wests who were knocked out in the preliminary final of 2025, but can also line up right around the back seven.<\/p>\n

The competition, which was won by the Maitland Pickers for the fourth straight season in 2025, also features the likes of Kevin Naiqama<\/a>, Albert Kelly<\/a>, Brock Lamb<\/a>, Ethan Parry<\/a>, Brad Tighe<\/a>, Mitch Garbutt<\/a> and Peni Terepo<\/a> with former NRL<\/a> experience.<\/p>\n

Lakes United had a dismal season in 2025, finishing in tenth spot out of eleven teams with just four wins from their 16 games. They finished only ahead of the Northern Hawks, who finished the season winless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former NRL journeyman Will Smith will continue his career into 2026 after signing with Lakes United in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-361910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361910","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=361910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}