{"id":325317,"date":"2025-12-03T16:42:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T16:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/325317\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T16:42:25","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T16:42:25","slug":"nrl-star-addresses-rugby-360-speculation-and-reveals-future-plans-after-melbourne-storm-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/325317\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL star addresses Rugby 360 speculation and reveals future plans after Melbourne Storm exit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Clive Churchill Medallist did have a playful dig at fellow NRL star <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/link\/follow-20170101-p5nk9r\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Zac Lomax who was out of contract<\/a> and said to be keen on a lucrative R360 deal before the delay set in.<\/p>\n<p>Loading<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s funny that I\u2019d always been pretty set that next year would be a gap year for sport in general and the only thing I\u2019d be playing was golf, and I was pretty set on that,\u201d Papenhuyzen said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo once it came out [the R360 delay], everyone was like \u2018what are you going to do now?\u2019 But the plan was to always have the year off and try a few things and see how that goes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat plan doesn\u2019t change for me, maybe more [Zac] Lomax.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When the itch to play footy arises in 2026, Papenhuyzen has tactics in place to stay the course and, if he comes back in future, all options will be on the table.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not sure but I\u2019m sure I would weigh up all options if I had that feeling again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut right now, I\u2019m looking at a blank canvas and I get to write that next chapter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2018All my mates and family think I\u2019ve signed something somewhere, but I\u2019m just not playing.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Ryan Papenhuyzen about his playing future in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Papenhuyzen said he was mentoring young athletes and relishing the chance to share some of his lessons gleaned from his years at the top of the NRL.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUsing my experience of having a life coach and loving the psychology side of things \u2013 at the moment I\u2019m doing some performance coaching for a few younger athletes and I\u2019ve really enjoyed the start of that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Loading<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI really benefited from that in my career, and hopefully I can share that message with people finding trouble \u2013 that\u2019s the first thing I\u2019ll start off with.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know I will miss it at some point but at the same time, I\u2019m really enjoying all this stuff now. I\u2019m sure when I have itchy feet, I\u2019ll find other things to take my mind off it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Otherwise, he has aims to travel, playing golf, catch up with family and do the things he usually says \u201cno\u201d to due to NRL commitments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m actually caddying for Daniel Gale next week at the Cathedral Invitational, that could be the new career,\u201d Papenhuyzen said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou never know. But those opportunities I wouldn\u2019t have got to do [usually] as next week I would have been back at training, so I\u2019ll grab onto those things now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Clive Churchill Medallist did have a playful dig at fellow NRL star Zac Lomax who was out&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-325317","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\/325317","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=325317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}