{"id":289883,"date":"2025-11-17T07:04:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T07:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/289883\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T07:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T07:04:07","slug":"zac-lomax-leaves-nrl-ahead-of-rumoured-r360-defection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/289883\/","title":{"rendered":"Zac Lomax leaves NRL ahead of rumoured R360 defection"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lomax joins Melbourne Storm fullback Ryan Papenhuyzen in requesting an early release from an NRL contract with both players now expected to take up lucrative offers in a rebel rugby union competition. <\/p>\n

Parramatta Eels<\/a> confirmed on Sunday afternoon that Zac Lomax had been released from the club just one year into a four-year deal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lomax was reportedly on a $650,000 p\/a contract at Parramatta, suddenly leaving the club with a lot of flexibility to make a big play in the free agency market next summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is nonetheless a big blow on the field for the struggling Eels, with Lomax notching up nine tries in his 14 starts as a winger (in addition to five games at the start of the season in the centres) as they finished six points outside the top-eight.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old is “almost certain” to soon announce a defection to the rebel R360 competition, according to a report from Code Sports, risking a ten-year ban from the NRL<\/a>.<\/p>\n

R360 is reportedly offering marquee tax-free deals of $1.5m per year to attract stars from the NRL and Super Rugby, which would see Lomax three times better off if he takes it up.<\/p>\n

The Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC) earlier this year threatened ten-year bans from all sanctioned competitions for any player who joins R360, though whether they would follow through — and more importantly, if it would hold up in a court challenge — remains to be seen, especially as the players would be signing as uncontracted athletes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Founded by England league legend Mike Tindall, R360 has won funding for its inaugural competition in October 2026 and will begin with six men’s teams, operating in a Rugby Sevens-style carnival season which won’t feature any teams or matches in Australia.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lomax joins Melbourne Storm fullback Ryan Papenhuyzen in requesting an early release from an NRL contract with both…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-289883","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289883","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=289883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}