NRL: Addin Fonua-Blake requests release from Warriors contract on compassionate grounds - report

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In a shock development, Warriors’ Dally M prop of the year Addin Fonua-Blake has reportedly requested a release from his contract to look for a new home in 2024.

The 27-year-old has requested the release on compassionate grounds and seeks a return to Sydney to closer to his parents.

Warriors chief executive Cameron George said the club was “considering” the request.

Fonua-Blake had extended his deal in 2022 that would have kept him with the Warriors until the end of the 2026 season.

The news comes just weeks after Fonua-Blake was named as in the NRL’s Dally M team of the year at prop and will leave the Warriors with a sizeable hole in their pack larger than his 123kg frame.

Across 26 appearances for the Warriors in 2023, the Tongan representative scored nine tries with 4453 running metres - 1670 of those coming post-contact.

Addin Fonua-Blake celebrates during the NZ Warriors' defeat of the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs. Photo / Photosport

Averaging 14 hit ups and game and racking up 73 tackle busts across the season Fonua-Blake’s career-best year laid the platform for the Warriors’ run to a preliminary final.

He was signed from the Sea Eagles in 2020 after telling the Manly club he wanted to move away from Sydney, so the turnaround presents a tough picture for the Warriors after just three seasons.

Fonua-Blake also spent the two Covid-disrupted seasons based in Australia with the Warriors before relocating with the rest of the team to Auckland.