Former Kiwis and NRL star Matt Utai has been shot multiple times on his front lawn in an ambush attack with no clear motive.<\/p>\n
The 2004 premiership-winning Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs winger was left with serious leg wounds after the attack at his home at Greenacre, in southwest Sydney, about 6am on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
He underwent surgery hours later.<\/p>\n
Police were told shots were fired from an SUV that was later found burnt out.<\/p>\n
“It’s a brazen ambush,” Superintendent Rodney Hart told reporters.<\/p>\n
Local police have handed the investigation over to the organised crime-focused Raptor Squad.<\/p>\n
But a motive remains unclear, with Utai having no clear links to criminal activity.<\/p>\n
“This was definitely targeted,” Supt Hart said.<\/p>\n
“Whether the victim was the intended target or it was somebody that he knows or associates with or is related to, will all form part of the investigation.”<\/p>\n
Utai had walked out of the home he shares with his wife and children and was about to drive to work when he was shot.<\/p>\n
He was “obviously in a fair bit of pain” but able to speak with arriving police who applied first aid, Supt Hart said.<\/p>\n
Utai was stabilised by paramedics and then taken to hospital in a serious but stable condition before undergoing surgery.<\/p>\n
The SUV involved in the attack was found after being set on fire in Wiley Park, less than a 10-minute drive from where the shooting took place.<\/p>\n
Fire authorities extinguished the blaze and the SUV was seized for forensic examination.<\/p>\n
Utai starred in the 2004 NRL grand final, scoring two tries as his Bulldogs knocked off the Sydney Roosters 16-13.<\/p>\n
The New Zealand and Samoa international played 167 NRL games, joining the Wests Tigers in 2011 and spending three seasons there.<\/p>\n
The 2002 Dally M Rookie of the Year finished his NRL career with 85 tries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Kiwis and NRL star Matt Utai has been shot multiple times on his front lawn in an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-288277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}