{"id":470817,"date":"2026-02-10T15:11:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T15:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/470817\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T15:11:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T15:11:20","slug":"zac-lomax-limbo-continues-after-parramatta-eels-and-melbhourne-storm-powerbrokers-meet-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/470817\/","title":{"rendered":"Zac Lomax limbo continues after Parramatta Eels and Melbhourne Storm powerbrokers meet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lomax\u2019s future was a hot topic at the NRL\u2019s season launch at Mrs Macquaries Chair<\/a> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI played for Australia with him a couple of years ago. He\u2019s a great character, Zac, a really good guy, and a really good player as well,\u201d said Storm captain Harry Grant.<\/p>\n

\"Bring<\/p>\n

Bring on 2026: NRL players gather for the season launch at Mrs Macquarie\u2019s Chair on Tuesday.Credit: Louise Kennerley<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the fact that our club is always looking to improve, always looking to get better. Obviously, Zac fits that mould for sure. But at the end of the day, it\u2019s out of my control. All I can do is hope that Zac is doing OK with it all. I hope he\u2019s got the right support around him at the moment and, fingers crossed, we can see him back in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

The potential consequences of flirting with R360 were laid bare last year when the Australian Rugby League Commission warned it would impose 10-year bans<\/a> on players who committed to the proposed global rugby roadshow.<\/p>\n

ARLC chairman Peter V\u2019landys has since said Lomax would not be subjected to such a penalty and the NRL would register a new contract for him.<\/p>\n

NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo had a similar message on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want the best athletes in the world playing in the NRL and NRLW competition, full stop,\u201d Abdo said. \u201cIt all has to happen within our rules and clearly there are now discussions happening between Zac and the Eels. That\u2019s the subject of a court case and I don\u2019t want to talk to specifics.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut our blanket statement, as the CEO of the game, we want the best athletes coming and playing our sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is welcome news for Melbourne and Grant.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, we\u2019ve got a short career,\u201d Grant said. \u201cAnd you don\u2019t want to miss out on these opportunities. I think anyone in our league \u2013 you\u2019ve got a limited time to play, limited time to be an athlete \u2013 sometimes opportunities come up. I don\u2019t want to see anyone rubbed out of the game [and] miss those opportunities to maximise their potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Craig Bellamy\u2019s side are eager to have Lomax on board, Parramatta have put their former teammate behind them.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe made his decision after the season that he wasn\u2019t going to be with us, so we\u2019ve just moved on, I guess,\u201d captain Mitchell Moses said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely as a playing group we\u2019ve moved on and we haven\u2019t thought about it. He hasn\u2019t done one training session with us, so we\u2019ve moved on. It just gives another one of these other boys an opportunity to come in, take a jersey, and come into what we\u2019re trying to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moses said he was glad the club was standing up for itself on the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll back the club in whatever they do, whatever decision they make,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019ve got our full support as a playing group, whatever they do, we\u2019ll back them. It\u2019s out of our control.\u201d<\/p>\n

A hearing in Parramatta\u2019s case against Lomax has been pushed back until March 2, just three days before Melbourne begin their season against the Eels at AAMI Park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lomax\u2019s future was a hot topic at the NRL\u2019s season launch at Mrs Macquaries Chair on Tuesday. \u201cI…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-470817","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\/470817","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=470817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}