{"id":529353,"date":"2026-03-09T18:47:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T18:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/529353\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T18:47:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T18:47:10","slug":"his-departure-is-of-no-consequence-grant-slams-lomax-wallabies-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/529353\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018His departure is of no consequence\u2019: Grant slams Lomax Wallabies \u2018dream\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The scathing reaction to Zac Lomax\u2019s switch to rugby union has continued, with especially strong words coming from International Rugby League boss Troy Grant.<\/p>\n<p>Barely a week after losing his desperate legal fight to play NRL with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/au\/rugby-league\/melbourne-storm\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Melbourne Storm<\/a>, the former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/au\/rugby-league\/parramatta-eels\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Eels<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/au\/rugby-league\/st-george-illawarra-dragons\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dragons<\/a> winger announced his \u2018dream\u2019 of playing rugby for Australia after signing a two-year Super Rugby deal with the Western Force.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLike any player, the dream of one day representing the Wallabies on a truly international stage, and potentially competing at a Rugby World Cup, is a powerful motivation,\u201d Lomax said in a statement from Rugby Australia.<\/p>\n<p>An avalanche of criticism quickly flooded in from the rugby league community with former players and fans accusing the player of hypocrisy, with IRL chairman Troy Grant at the head of the queue.<\/p>\n<p>MORE: <a style=\"\" target=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/au\/rugby-league\/news\/zac-lomax-signs-two-year-deal-eels-contract-saga-ends\/9114d7eb8428ca4e8e5092bf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Zac Lomax signs two-year deal as Eels contract saga ends<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s nice to hear about Zac\u2019s dream of representing the Wallabies, which comes less than two weeks after losing his court case to play with Melbourne,\u201d <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/sport\/nrl\/i-hope-it-s-the-last-we-see-of-him-the-parting-shot-from-lomax-that-has-enraged-rugby-league-20260309-p5o8uk.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Grant told<\/a> the Sydney Morning Herald.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHis departure from international rugby league is of no consequence\u2014and he will have no impact on rugby union.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll I can say, \u2018don\u2019t let the door hit you on the arse on the way out\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The scathing reaction to Zac Lomax\u2019s switch to rugby union has continued, with especially strong words coming from&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-529353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529353","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=529353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}