FORMER St Helens stalwart Sione Mata’utia has revealed that he turned down a chance to return to the NRL after signing with local rugby league side Lakes United Seagulls.
The Seagulls, who play in the Newcastle Rugby League competition with their last Premiership coming back in 2015, added Sione and brother Peter to their ranks for the 2025 season, despite Sione previously hanging up his boots.
However, Sione has revealed, to the Newcastle Herald, that he had been in talks with former Saints Kristian Woolf about joining NRL side Dolphins before eventually turning down a move to Wests Tigers.
Mata’utia said: “I was in talks with Kristian Woolf, waiting for one player to leave [the Dolphins] and that sort of dried up.
“My whole plan was to come back and play, but we were just trying to understand where. We didn’t want to go to Sydney because of the kids and then you’ve got to factor in maybe an extra 50k [thousand dollars] worth of living.
“The Tigers were an opportunity as well. They rang the day after I signed with Lakes, but by then I’d made my decision. I was going to catch up with Benji, but I rang him back and said ‘I don’t want to waste your time driving up here’. So it was still on the table and ready to go.”
Sione hung up his boots a week ago following a number of years with the Merseyside club. Mata’utia joined Saints ahead of the 2021 Super League campaign from NRL club Newcastle Knights and made almost 100 appearances for the Merseyside club, scoring 18 tries for a total of 72 points.
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