{"id":181611,"date":"2025-10-01T03:45:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T03:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/181611\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T03:45:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T03:45:17","slug":"surprising-club-enters-the-mix-for-melbourne-storm-playmaker-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/181611\/","title":{"rendered":"Surprising club enters the mix for Melbourne Storm playmaker &#8211; NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Already linked with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/nrl\/teams\/gold-coast-titans\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gold Coast Titans<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/nrl\/teams\/north-queensland-cowboys\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">North Queensland Cowboys<\/a>, another club has reportedly entered the mix to sign young playmaker <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/jonah-pezet\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jonah Pezet<\/a> from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/nrl\/teams\/melbourne-storm\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Melbourne Storm<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Touted as the future successor of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/cameron-munster\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cameron Munster<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/jahrome-hughes\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jahrome Hughes<\/a> in the Storm&#8217;s halves, Pezet is contracted at the Storm until the end of 2029 but is now a free agent due to Hughes extending his stay in Melbourne.<\/p>\n<p>Due to a clause in his contract, Pezet, who is rated as one of the best young halves in the game of rugby league, is now able to test the open market, allowing him to talk with rival teams over a possible move.<\/p>\n<p>A former junior\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/state-of-origin\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">State of Origin<\/a> representative, he hasn&#8217;t found a shortage of suitors over the last few months, catching the interest of the Cowboys, Titans, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/nrl\/teams\/canberra-raiders\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Canberra Raiders<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/nrl\/teams\/newcastle-knights\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Newcastle Knights<\/a> &#8211; the latter two have since exited the race to sign him.<\/p>\n<p>There is speculation that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/nrl\/teams\/parramatta-eels\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Parramatta Eels<\/a> have become the latest team to consider chasing Pezet, according to<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailytelegraph.com.au\/sport\/nrl\/parramatta-eels-would-seriously-think-about-releasing-zac-lomax-to-r360-rebel-rugby-competition\/news-story\/71b45ed0a2c33d29d7a601154f443615\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0The Daily Telegraph<\/a>, but this is contingent on whether <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/zac-lomax\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Zac Lomax<\/a> switches codes to the rebel rugby union competition known as R360.<\/p>\n<p>RELATED:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/six-potential-landing-spots-for-jonah-pezet-224936\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">SIX potential landing spots for Jonah Pezet<\/a><\/p>\n<p>As it stands, the Eels don&#8217;t have enough room in their salary cap to afford the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/nrl\/teams\/melbourne-storm\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Melbourne Storm<\/a> youngster.<\/p>\n<p>However, if Lomax is released, it will free up approximately $650,000 per season, totalling around $1.95 million, as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/rugby-league\/international-teams\/australia\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Australia<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/rugby-league\/teams\/nsw-blues\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NSW Blues<\/a> winger is technically contracted for another three years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe spoke about it probably six weeks ago and Zac said \u2018there might be something there.'&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/nrl\/teams\/parramatta-eels\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Parramatta Eels<\/a> coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/coaches\/jason-ryles\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jason Ryles<\/a> told\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailytelegraph.com.au\/sport\/nrl\/parramatta-eels-would-seriously-think-about-releasing-zac-lomax-to-r360-rebel-rugby-competition\/news-story\/71b45ed0a2c33d29d7a601154f443615\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Daily Telegraph.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;d have a serious think about it. We&#8217;d have to work through it with him. We&#8217;ll cross that bridge when it comes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Already linked with the Gold Coast Titans and North Queensland Cowboys, another club has reportedly entered the mix&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-181611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}