Breakaway rugby competition R360 will not launch until 2028, in a move that could leave NRL stars Zac Lomax and Ryan Papenhuyzen in limbo.<\/p>\n
Organisers of the rebel league confirmed the competition would be pushed back two years, until after the 2027 Rugby World Cup.<\/p>\n
The news will come as a huge relief to the NRL, amid concerns more players could leave for the breakaway competition.<\/p>\n
R360 officials had initially planned to launch in October next year, while targeting NRL players for their first season.<\/p>\n
Lomax and Papenhuyzen were among those spoken to by R360 officials, and they have since been released by Parramatta and Melbourne.<\/p>\n
But opposition from several rugby union boards, including Australia’s, threatening to ban players from national duties has prompted the league to be pushed back.<\/p>\n
“The decision to shift our launch to 2028 is a strategic decision based on timing,” R360 boss Mike Tindall said.<\/p>\n
“Launching under compressed timelines would not meet the standards we set for R360, nor would it deliver the long-term commercial impact that the sport deserves.”<\/p>\n
The NRL had threatened 10-year bans for any player who joined the competition, but the fact it has not launched means both Lomax and Papenhuyzen can return to the NRL.<\/p>\n
It also likely means Payne Haas will stay in the NRL, after the off-contract Brisbane superstar was also targeted by R360 officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Breakaway rugby competition R360 will not launch until 2028, in a move that could leave NRL stars Zac…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-314077","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-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314077","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=314077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}