{"id":287922,"date":"2025-11-16T08:42:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T08:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/287922\/"},"modified":"2025-11-16T08:42:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T08:42:14","slug":"eels-release-lomax-as-r360-beckons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/287922\/","title":{"rendered":"Eels release Lomax as R360 beckons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Zac Lomax has been granted a release from the final three years of his NRL contract with Parramatta following speculation the representative winger would defect to R360.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The club on Sunday confirmed Lomax would leave &#8220;to pursue opportunities outside the NRL&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">His departure follows the exit of Melbourne&#8217;s star fullback Ryan Papenhuyzen, who had also been linked with a move to the breakaway competition set to launch late next year.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Lomax.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ee8973f8780dce465b6fbf6f2e566aaf.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Lomax has shone for the Eels since switching from St George on a big money contract this year. (Mark Evans\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Lomax, 26, had joined the Eels from St George Illawarra after the 2024 season on a deal reportedly worth some $700,000 annually.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The NSW Origin gun&#8217;s release was agreed to by the Eels, on the basis he would not join a rival NRL club without their permission.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">There have been reported attempts to lure Brisbane, NSW and Australian star Payne Haas on a salary north of $3 million a season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Despite Australian Rugby League Commission chief Peter V&#8217;landys&#8217; attempts to rubbish the concept as a &#8220;competition out of a Corn Flakes box&#8221;, the NRL has threatened players, and their agents, with 10 year bans for defection to the rebel league.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Most major rugby nations, including Australia, are prepared to blacklist players from Test representation if they sign R360 deals.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Payne Haas.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/9d109ffa59710c4076e83f8427e738c9.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Payne Haas is another NRL star reportedly in the sights of R360. (AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The privately-owned league, registered to the United Arab Emirates Rugby Federation, is set to feature teams in London, Miami, Tokyo, Dubai, Boston, Cape Town, Lisbon, and Madrid and hold a player draft in July.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Former England rugby star Mike Tindall is the face and co-founder of the competition, which aims to field six male and four female teams in its inaugural season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Lomax&#8217;s premature exit frees up space in the salary cap for the Eels, who recently re-signed fellow winger Josh Addo-Carr and have Storm playmaker Jonah Pezet arriving for a one-season cameo before his move to the Broncos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zac Lomax has been granted a release from the final three years of his NRL contract with Parramatta&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,6658,27643,49985,85,27096,22332],"class_list":["post-287922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-r360","tag-release","tag-ryan-papenhuyzen","tag-sports","tag-the-eels","tag-zac-lomax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287922","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=287922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}