Japanese rugby’s looming cap on overseas players won’t stop the competition being a potential sanctuary for R360-bound NRL talent, with tighter limits only coming in late next year.<\/p>\n
Japan remains the most likely short-stay destination for defecting players on their way to R360, with the likes of Zac Lomax and Ryan Papenhuyzen both in limbo following their releases from Parramatta and Melbourne respectively.<\/p>\n
Brisbane superstar Payne Haas headlines a list of other players targeted by the rebel R360 competition, which is still eyeing a potential October 2026 start date.<\/p>\n
Papenhuyzen and Lomax’s situations differ in that the former is likely to take time off before his next career move, after being heavily linked to the proposed R360 circuit.<\/p>\n
Lomax is also expected to join the competition, but is looking at opportunities to take up the 15-man game beforehand.<\/p>\n
Japan’s Rugby Football Union remains one of the few big-money associations not to have publicly opposed R360 by blacklisting defecting players who join the league.<\/p>\n
Payne Haas of Toa Samoa charges into the New Zealand defence during the Pacific Championships.\u00a0Hannah Peters\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
The lucrative competition is already a home to NRL talents such as Joey Manu and Valynce Te Whare.<\/p>\n
Officials have introduced rules that will make it harder to fill teams with talent not born or raised in Japan, likely creating a greater squeeze for overseas players.<\/p>\n
A limit also exists on overseas players who have not played Test rugby, with the move promoted to bring a greater balance to the competition.<\/p>\n
However the tightening of restrictions won’t come into force until the 2026-27 season, after R360’s planned launch.<\/p>\n
Japan’s season runs from December until June, meaning any player would be free to join the breakaway rugby competition for its planned October start.<\/p>\n
Whether R360 is ready to start next October is another matter.<\/p>\n
Concerns linger over its financial viability, while the move by several nations to block defecting talent from next year’s Rugby World Cup has hit playing stocks hard.<\/p>\n
Outside of Japan, the USA are also yet to come out against the rebel competition, but any thought of Major League Rugby becoming a landing ground has been scuttled by wages below the NRL’s minimum salary.<\/p>\n
It comes as Lomax and Papenhuyzen’s agent Clinton Schifcofske moved to distance himself from their pair’s potential switch to R360.<\/p>\n
With agents facing 10-year bans from the NRL if they assist moves to the competition, Schifcofske said he’d told his clients to find another manager for any such talks.<\/p>\n
The other big question remains over Haas, who is off contract at Brisbane next year and would be a big-money target for R360 officials.<\/p>\n
Brisbane still expect Haas to be at the club in 2026 and it is unlikely the Broncos would gain any real advantage in releasing the game’s best forward early.<\/p>\n
Haas is a primary carer for two of his younger brothers in Brisbane, but could more than double his salary in R360.<\/p>\n
“He’s got a lot on his shoulders now but whatever Payne does, he does and I’ll support him with whatever he does,” Brisbane centre Kotoni Staggs said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
“Whatever he does he does and I think he’ll put his family first.”<\/p>\n
Staggs said he could also see how last month’s premiership win could help keep Haas at Brisbane.<\/p>\n
“That’s what you want to do, when you win one, win another,” Staggs said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japanese rugby’s looming cap on overseas players won’t stop the competition being a potential sanctuary for R360-bound NRL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-294170","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\/294170","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=294170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}