{"id":420127,"date":"2026-01-18T00:14:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T00:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/420127\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T00:14:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T00:14:13","slug":"rlpa-warns-melbourne-storm-against-forcing-player-out-for-deal-with-parramatta-eels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/420127\/","title":{"rendered":"RLPA warns Melbourne Storm against forcing player out for deal with Parramatta Eels"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"RLPA boss Clint Newton.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/d468a641894b2f86031f4d160926284f0904b110.jpeg\" height=\"283\" width=\"283\" \/><\/p>\n<p>RLPA boss Clint Newton.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s for them to obviously work through and hopefully resolve. However, we certainly wouldn\u2019t be supportive of anyone entering into some sort of horse-trading type situation, where it\u2019s on the condition of player X or player Y going to Parramatta.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s not something that we would encourage or support.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPlayers who have existing contracts have every right to be able to see out their futures at the club they signed the contract with.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMelbourne are very much aware of that, and I certainly believe that they\u2019ll honour and respect that process.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lomax is reported to have engaged the services of a prominent lawyer, but Newton is hopeful the issue can be resolved amicably.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want the best athletes playing our game,\u201d Newton said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cZac is obviously a tremendous athlete and someone that we want to keep in rugby league. So really it\u2019s just about all parties reaching an agreement, which hopefully they will.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sarantinos said on Thursday Lomax had \u201cwillingly signed\u201d the terms and conditions of his release, and the Eels should not be disadvantaged just because R360 had moved the goalposts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThings obviously haven\u2019t worked out the way he was expecting them to, and he is now looking at other opportunities within the NRL,\u201d Sarantinos said.<\/p>\n<p>Loading<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs far as we\u2019re concerned, we won\u2019t be consenting to him signing with another club unless there\u2019s an appropriate exchange of value. We have had a representative player leave our roster who now wants to join another club\u2019s roster.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Player agent Steve Gillis, who along with Clinton Schicofske helps manage Lomax, told the FanaticsTV podcast he was confident \u201ccommon sense would prevail\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>He also predicted Lomax, who has requested early releases from contracts with St George Illawarra and Parramatta, would honour his next deal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d be very surprised if wherever he lands next \u2026 I doubt very much he\u2019ll be jumping out early,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RLPA boss Clint Newton.Credit: Getty Images \u201cThat\u2019s for them to obviously work through and hopefully resolve. However, we&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-420127","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\/420127","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=420127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}