{"id":455808,"date":"2026-02-03T14:00:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T14:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/455808\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T14:00:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T14:00:15","slug":"nrl-news-2026-zac-lomaxs-legal-battle-with-parramatta-eels-could-be-extended-melbourne-storm-move-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/455808\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news 2026 | Zac Lomax’s legal battle with Parramatta Eels could be extended, Melbourne Storm move, reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zac Lomax<\/a> may not get the chance to take to the field in new colours by the time the first round begins, as a new twist to his legal stoush<\/a> with the Eels<\/a> has been revealed.<\/p>\n

The end of what has been a messy contract saga for Lomax looked set to come one step closer to its end, with a court hearing scheduled for February 12 and 13.<\/p>\n

However, according to The Sydney Morning Herald<\/a>, at the end of a directions hearing on Tuesday, Parramatta raised concerns that the case timeline could be prolonged if additional parties need to join the proceedings.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: ‘Enough excuses’: Bennett under pressure amid finals drought<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Cripps explains why viral training clip won’t hurt Carlton players<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Wallabies schedule defended as All Blacks clash delayed<\/a><\/p>\n

As per the terms of Lomax’s initial release, it was stated that he couldn’t join another NRL team unless his original Eels contract had expired or adequate compensation was provided.<\/p>\n

That contract was set to run until the end of the 2028 season, having put pen to paper on the deal after being granted an early release from the Dragons in 2024.<\/p>\n

He then requested a release from Parramatta in bid to join rebel league R360. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Zac Lomax in action for the Eels.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Now he is hoping to make the move to the Storm<\/a> ahead of the club’s round one battle against his former Western Sydney club. <\/p>\n

Storm majority owner Matt Tripp admitted that Lomax had been “unreliably informed that R360 was going ahead”, when speaking on the matter with Code Sports.<\/p>\n

He then took a swipe at the Eels’ stance on the situation – being that they do not believe the offered $300,000 compensation from the club is adequate to settle Lomax’s saga – noting that the Storm had allowed now Parramatta coach Jason Ryles to leave the club mid-season with no compensation.<\/p>\n

“Now the shoe is on the other foot and their behaviour appears a little odd,” Tripp said.<\/p>\n

Lawyers on the behalf of Lomax have said that if the courts find that Parramatta’s control and stance is valid, they will allege the Eels are acting unreasonably. <\/p>\n

It is that allegation that would ultimately expand the timeline of the case.<\/p>\n

Lomax’s barrister continued to push for the hearing to take place as originally scheduled in order to provide his client certainty about what his future as an elite athlete looks like.<\/p>\n

However, the Eels’ barrister, Arthur Moses, was in no mood to overlook key information about the saga.<\/p>\n

“Your honour, of course that was an unsanctioned global franchise-based rugby union competition, which was to create a rival league to traditional rugby with, one might say, a unicorn proposal big of money and promises featuring [playing] overseas,” he said.<\/p>\n

“What we do know now, your honour, from documents that have been [produced] via subpoena is that he entered into a provisional contract with R360 conditional on him securing a release from the club.<\/p>\n

“What we also know from the documents that have been subpoenaed is that prior to the Melbourne Storm approaching Parramatta for discussions to get consent that he [was in talks to] play for the Melbourne Storm in the competition this year, they had entered into, in effect, a contract that had been placed on the NRL portal, something called Gateway, prior to the Melbourne Storm approaching Parramatta.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zac Lomax may not get the chance to take to the field in new colours by the time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-455808","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\/455808","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=455808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}