launch had been pushed back<\/a> until 2028.<\/p>\nARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys immediately confirmed to AAP that Zac Lomax and Ryan Papenhuyzen were able to return, after being linked to R360.<\/p>\n
Whether either do immediately remains to be seen, but R360’s 2026 demise is already a positive for the Bears.<\/p>\n
Perth are yet to land a significant blow in the player market, and the threat of stars leaving the NRL and even marginally weakening the talent pool was less than ideal.<\/p>\n
The demise of R360 should at least restore some normality back to the market, while adding serious questions over the viability of a new 2028 launch date.<\/p>\n
There also remains the potential of the Bears making a play for rugby union talent both in Australia and abroad, with one less threat in R360 now gone.<\/p>\n
Lomax and Papenhuyzen share the same manager in Clinton Schifcofske and were both in talks with R360 before exiting their NRL clubs in the past two months.<\/p>\n
But the pair’s situations are somewhat different.<\/p>\n
Lomax still had three years to run on his Parramatta contract, worth close to AU$700,000 (NZ$800,034) a season, when released a fortnight ago.<\/p>\n
Part of his exit included a clause that stopped him playing for an NRL rival until his initial Eels deal expired at the end of 2028.<\/p>\n
The NSW State of Origin winger could pursue overseas rugby as he was expected to do in the time before R360’s intended October 2026 launch.<\/p>\n
But he may not immediately command the same money he did in the NRL.<\/p>\n
If Parramatta decide they have moved on with salary-cap space cleared, Lomax could still play for another club if an agreement is reached with the Eels.<\/p>\n
Papenhuyzen’s situation is less clear, after exiting the final year of his Melbourne deal to reconsider his future in professional sport.<\/p>\n
The Storm have long maintained they do not expect Papenhuyzen to play anywhere next season, but there is nothing stopping him featuring in either code at any time.<\/p>\n
The former Melbourne No.1 said in May he could see the genuine lure in playing for the Bears, even if a cross-country move to Perth might deter some.<\/p>\n
“It would be tough, but I think there’s also an appeal of a foundation club,” Papenhuyzen said at the time.<\/p>\n
“You don’t get many opportunities to do that. I don’t think it would be too big of an issue to attract players.”<\/p>\n
R360 officials said the decision to postpone the tournament was to allow for “stronger market conditions (and) greater commercial certainty”.<\/p>\n
The abandoned launch means Payne Haas is likely to remain in Brisbane for 2027, after also being the target of a big-money pitch from the rebel competition.<\/p>\n
The news will be a relief to the NRL, but not a shock given they had accused the competition of “counterfeiting a code” and offering no financial security.<\/p>\n
“Naturally Ryan and Zac are most welcome to come back,” V’landys told AAP on Friday night.<\/p>\n
“They were just victims of the mirage.<\/p>\n
“(It’s) no surprise. Their current business model was never going to work. It’s a shame so many people were hoodwinked.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perth could emerge as the big beneficiaries of R360’s failure to launch, easing pressure on the player market…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-160138","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}