{"id":158413,"date":"2021-11-10T23:18:21","date_gmt":"2021-11-11T00:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=158413"},"modified":"2021-11-11T05:02:02","modified_gmt":"2021-11-11T05:02:02","slug":"rival-club-poaches-star-eels-back-rower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=158413","title":{"rendered":"Rival club poaches star Eels back-rower"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back-rower Marata Niukore<\/a> has become the first of Parramatta's<\/a> off-contract stars to confirm his departure from the club, signing a four-year deal with the Warriors<\/a> from 2023.<\/p>\n

Niukore, one of a host of Eels players whose contracts expire at the end of next season, will return to the Warriors, the club where he played under-20s before joining Parramatta.<\/p>\n

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"We're absolutely thrilled to sign Marata on a long-term deal," said Warriors CEO Cameron George.<\/p>\n

"We had him marked down as one of our key recruitment targets once we were able to go to the market for players off contract after the 2022 season.<\/p>\n

"His home is Auckland, he knows our club really well and he's now a well-established first grader who's going to be a key player for us. He's a really big part of our long-term future through to 2026."<\/p>\n

Niukore played 21 matches for the Eels in 2021, and will see out his contract with Parramatta in 2022.<\/p>\n

"Marata has developed into a high quality second rower who'll bring so much to our squad," said Warriors coach Nathan Brown.<\/p>\n

"We've been keeping a close eye on him and have been really impressed with the way he has developed his all-round game. It'll be great to have him on our roster from 2023."<\/p>\n

His loss potentially frees up money for the Eels to retain their other off-contract stars, with Clint Gutherson and Reed Mahoney headlining a worryingly long list of free agents.<\/p>\n

\"Marata<\/p>\n

Mahoney met with Bulldogs officials earlier this week, but the club's general manager of football, Phil Gould, confirmed to Wide World of Sports this morning that details of any possible contract are yet to be worked out.<\/a><\/p>\n

"There has certainly be no formal offer at this stage – it was very much preliminary discussions," Gould said.<\/p>\n

"If Reed shows a genuine interest in being a Bulldog, we would be keen for further talks."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/em><\/strong> clicking here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back-rower Marata Niukore has become the first of Parramatta's off-contract stars to confirm his departure from the club, signing a four-year deal with the Warriors […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158413"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=158413"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":158415,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158413\/revisions\/158415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=158413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=158413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=158413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}