{"id":328251,"date":"2025-12-21T14:36:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T14:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/328251\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T14:36:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T14:36:10","slug":"former-hull-fc-playmaker-joins-ex-st-helens-and-warrington-wolves-men-at-new-club-down-under","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/328251\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Hull FC playmaker joins ex-St Helens and Warrington Wolves men at new club down under"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Ex-NRL veteran, and former Hull FC man, Will Smith, has found a new club ahead of 2026, after securing a move to play with some familiar faces to the UK competition in Australia.<\/p>\n

Smith will join the Mata\u2019utia brothers, Sione and Peter, as he switches to Newcastle-based side Lakes United for the upcoming campaign.<\/p>\n

A former player at Penrith Panthers, Parramatta, Gold Coast and Wests Tigers, the now 33-year-old left the Southern Hemisphere in 2022, to join the Black and Whites for the latter part of that season.<\/p>\n

In seven matches, he scored twice, but it wouldn\u2019t be enough to guide them to a play-off spot, as they ended the season in ninth, six points off the top six.<\/p>\n

He returned to the NRL once his half-year under Brett Hodgson had concluded, which is where he joined Wests for the following campaign.<\/p>\n

An 88-time NRL player, Smith will now continue his playing career with the Lakes, and will add huge versatility, having played at full-back, centre, the halves and hooker in his time as a professional.<\/p>\n

Check out the latest episode of The Serious About Rugby League Show on our YouTube channel here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Former Hull FC man Will Smith joins new club<\/p>\n

It is not just the Mata\u2019utia brothers that he will be playing with, or against, in 2026, with a number of former Super League stars featuring in the same competition, which is one of the strongest regional divisions in Australia.<\/p>\n

Kevin Naiqama, Albert Kelly, and Mitch Garbutt are all other big names in the league, with the latter recently confirming that he would be the captain-coach of the Scone Thoroughbreds.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ex-NRL veteran, and former Hull FC man, Will Smith, has found a new club ahead of 2026, after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-328251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}