{"id":250549,"date":"2025-10-30T08:46:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T08:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/250549\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T08:46:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T08:46:14","slug":"eels-provide-update-on-future-of-zac-lomax-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/250549\/","title":{"rendered":"Eels provide update on future of Zac Lomax – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Parramatta Eels<\/a> have suggested Zac Lomax<\/a> won’t be going anywhere for the 2026 NRL<\/a> season.<\/p>\n

The winger, who moved from the St George Illawarra Dragons<\/a> to the Eels at the end of 2024 on a long-term deal, has been linked with an exit from the blue and gold in recent times despite being an Origin and Kangaroos-named player before he had to pull out of the Ashes trip with injury.<\/p>\n

One of the most explosive wingers in the competition, Lomax was one of the first players linked with the Saudi Arabian-backed R360 competition, which has promised NRL<\/a> players who make the jump salaries of upwards of $2 million.<\/p>\n

It’s far beyond anything the NRL<\/a> can conjure up under the current salary cap and financial distribution levels, and Lomax, according to reports, has already played his last game in blue and gold.<\/p>\n

That, apparently, is not the view of the club, though, with director of football Mark O’Neill telling SEN 1170 Radio’s Run Home with Joel & Fletch that Lomax has a contract with the Eels.<\/p>\n

“All I’ll say is he has an existing contract with us.. He’s played great football. He’s played in Origin, he is an elite player, he’s got a contract with us, mate,” O’Neill said on SEN 1170 Radio.<\/p>\n

While the director of football, who has had a busy week signing Jonah Pezet<\/a> and re-signing Matt Doorey<\/a> ahead of November 1, didn’t elaborate, the comments suggest Lomax won’t be going anywhere.<\/p>\n

NRL<\/a> players are subject to a ten-year ban should they play in an unrecognised competition such as R360. Player managers face the same threat.<\/p>\n

Lomax isn’t the only NRL<\/a> player who has been linked with the rebel competition. Ryan Papenhuyzen<\/a>, who was released by the Storm on Thursday, is another, while the likes of Jye Gray<\/a>, Payne Haas<\/a> and even Nathan Cleary<\/a> are likely to have offers tabled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Parramatta Eels have suggested Zac Lomax won’t be going anywhere for the 2026 NRL season. The winger,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-250549","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\/250549","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=250549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}