{"id":484678,"date":"2025-12-22T18:27:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T19:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=484678"},"modified":"2025-12-23T00:21:30","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T00:21:30","slug":"teen-talent-emerges-as-surprise-candidate-to-replace-croker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=484678","title":{"rendered":"Teen talent emerges as 'surprise' candidate to replace Croker"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 19-year-old fresh out of school is shaping up as a shock contender for the Manly<\/a> hooking spot next season.<\/p>\n

With Lachlan Croker having to medically retire<\/a> and Gordon Chan Kum Tong switching to the Bulldogs<\/a>, Manly's hooking ranks are looking very thin.<\/p>\n

The Sea Eagles have sprung a major surprise by naming Zaidas Muagututia – a teenager with Samoan heritage – in their top 30 squad.<\/p>\n

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A NSW under-18 City representative this year, Muagututia has been a standout in the NSW Cup and is likely to be given his chance in the NRL<\/a> at some stage of next season.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

He is one of only three hookers in the top 30 – the incumbent Jake Simpkin and Roosters signing Zach Dockar-Clay being the others.<\/p>\n

"Zaidas is a very talented kid and really impressed us in his first season with the club this year," a Sea Eagles insider told Wide World of Sports.<\/p>\n

"He is smart out of dummyhalf, reads the play well and has speed.<\/p>\n

"He has a way to go, but he is definitely a player with potential."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A 19-year-old fresh out of school is shaping up as a shock contender for the Manly hooking spot next season. With Lachlan Croker having to […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":484680,"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\/484678"}],"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=484678"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":484681,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484678\/revisions\/484681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/484680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=484678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=484678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=484678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}