He was caught in the crossfire of his son Iziah Utai\u2019s alleged criminal associations and escalating gang conflict, detectives believe.<\/p>\n
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By continuing you agree to our Terms<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Police arrested a 25-year-old Marsden Park man and 15-year-old boy in Emerton on Friday night.<\/p>\n Both the man and teen were charged with shooting with intent to murder and participating in a criminal group contributing to criminal activity.<\/p>\n The pair were refused bail to appear before court on Saturday.<\/p>\n Shots were also fired at a home in outer western Sydney about 12.45am on Wednesday before a firebombing was carried out in Guildford West, near Parramatta, hours later.<\/p>\n A woman in her 50s who was inside the first home was uninjured.<\/p>\n All incidents were targeting the Utai family, police said.<\/p>\n Utai had surgery after being left with serious leg wounds from the attack and has since been transferred to a different hospital where he remains in a serious condition.<\/p>\n Both face counts of being an accessory after the fact to a shooting with intent to murder.<\/p>\n The New Zealand and Samoa international played 167 NRL games, starting at the Bulldogs, where he was part of their 2004 grand final winning team, before joining the Wests Tigers in 2011 and spending three seasons with the club.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man and a teenage boy have been charged over the alleged shooting of a former NRL premiership…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,2733,588,85],"class_list":["post-496607","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-nsw","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496607","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=496607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/7bb2c2dd2063ffaaf50b77afa3b61d0a5aae3999.jpg\")
Former NRL player Matt Utai. Credit: AAP![\"Police](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/69a7f9934b751025d110b3c31e3a5dae57259a25.png\")
Police believe the escalating gangland war is linked to alleged criminal connections of Matt Utai\u2019s son Iziah. Credit: 7NEWS<\/p>\n![\"Four](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/03820d599f12ee08a36ee499d900cad159cdc5ab.jpg\")
Four teen boys have already been charged in relation to a series of allegedly targeted attacks on Matt Utai and his family. Credit: 7NEWS<\/p>\n