Parramatta chief executive Jim Sarantinos has urged fans to keep backing the judgment of Jason Ryles after the Eels coach emerged as the key figure in the decision to sever ties with Zac Lomax.
The Eels confirmed on Sunday that they had agreed to release Lomax from the final three years of his contract, with the NSW and Australian winger expected to switch codes and eventually sign with rebel rugby union competition R360.
There have been whispers he will spend time in Japanese rugby before then. He has, however, likely played his last game in the NRL after the Eels decided they were better served spending their money on a player who was fully committed to the club. Ultimately, club bosses made the call in consultation with Ryles.
“He (Lomax) made it clear he wanted to pursue opportunities elsewhere,” Sarantinos said. “There’s obviously been that connection with R360. I really don’t know where that is at. I have no idea. “But he came forward to us and he asked if we would consider releasing him early. The main stakeholder in this is the coach. He’s been pretty decisive and strong around decisions he has made in regards to personnel.”
“I think the view was that if we have a player whose focus may be elsewhere and the opportunities came to exit that situation sooner rather than later, and it gives you an opportunity to strengthen your roster somewhere else, why not do that.”
“It’s not something we have been planning for the long term. But obviously we’ll look internally, we’ll look at who is available and we will look at the balance of the roster.”
Lomax’s departure is expected to strengthen the Eels’ bid to sign South Sydney and Kangaroos forward Keaon Koloamatangi, who came on the market on November 1. The Rabbitohs are fighting hard to keep Koloamatangi, but whispers are growing louder that he has had his head turned by Parramatta.
When asked whether he was surprised that Lomax had decided to leave, having fought so hard to get out of his deal at St George Illawarra to move to the Eels, Sarantinos said: “I don’t think you sign any player for four years and expect that 12 months into the contract they are going to be looking at other opportunities. Things change. When we signed Zac, Brad (Arthur) was coach. We probably didn’t expect that would be the situation. Now we have Rylesy in place and he’s been pretty clear with all the decisions he has made around personnel.”
It is understood that a transfer fee has been included as one of the conditions of Lomax’s release from his contract. The size of the release fee remains a closely guarded secret - this masthead was told it was a significant figure.
If Lomax is R360 bound, they will need to stump up plenty of cash to secure his signature for their inaugural competition in October next year.
Not that money appears to be an issue. Nor do the 10-year bans that have been threatened by the NRL for players who join the breakaway league.
They certainly don’t appear to have affected Lomax’s decision.
“I have no idea what R360’s strategy is,” Sarantinos said. “Are they looking to tear the NRL apart or are they looking to pick and choose NRL players. I don’t know how much of a deterrent the bans from the NRL will play. For some players it will be a major deterrent. For other players it may not matter.”
Replies
Lomax is picked in Origin because hes a big body who excels in bringing the ball out of yardage which is perfect for Origin. Hes not a bad player. Hes a great athlete who can make something from nothing. Having said that, he wants to play centre where he is atrocious . It takes away the best strengths from his game. He's also extremely slow, can't keep up with short side attacking raids and his defence is ordinary to below ordinary. Matty Johns has highlighted many times how Slater exploits him at Origin level and it happened a lot at club level. Sometimes he had the athletic anility to save himslef, often he didnt. He wasnt commited to becomming the best winger and essentially the best player he can be. For his strengths he was far from the complete winger. We will miss him in some areas and benefit from him not being there in others. On top of that we have 700k extra in our cap.
As for Dylan Brown. he was exceptional for the kiwis. A side that had a rampaging pack that was rolling down the field and dominating possession . His job was simple. The real test of him as a player will be going to Newcastle and finding his role within that side. We know from experience here he wont be the conductor of the attack, its also unlikley his pack is smashing the opposition and his thought process will be so clear. Hes shown with us an inability to know how to impact games and how he can add to an attack if his running game isnt given space. We've had this problem with him for 6 years. Its expected when youre young but when you put your hand up for million dollar + contracts the expectation on you goes through the roof. I dont think he will ever live up to the expectations and that contract is going to hang around the Knights neck for a decade. Im not sure what Parra was to do here. Theres no way im topping up or adding years to his contract when theres already 6 in front of him and he wasted 2 of them.
I see the year as another year of growth. I think we're starting the year off a much higher base than 2025. Players have more clarity about their roles in the system and whats required of them. Theres no reason why we shouldnt be competiive every game . That will get us playing in high stakes games which is part of the journey for the young players in our squad. As I said above , when the league knows you as a young squad making strides you can attract talent more within their proper value range. Paying overs now may slighlty help the short term but we'll get to a point where it hinders us going further. A young , improving squad with cap space is an exciting place to be . I dont get the doom and gloom around here.
The coaching staff dont want Lomax back and his money will be spent.
Your not starting at higher place purely because you've lost better talent than what your replacing it with which is undecided at the moment in Lomax's case and your starting again adding a new combinations on the left and right side.
Guess what your doing the samething in 27 on the left side also.
That's what's going to define this season how quickly we can get these new combinations upto speed in attack and defense.
Browns a miles better defender than Pezet ever will be so that'll be something to keep an eye on when teams isolate him.
The worse thing about losing DB is all he really needed was a structure that helped him consistency in selection and those to do there jobs around him and I bet we would have seen different player,even JR mentioned this early in the season which I see fans completely missed.You saw this 19-22 but funnily enough fans round here judge his talent off of the disaster that happend the last 2 seasons.
Lomax was picked for SoO because it was deemed he was the best player for NSW could have in the desired position.If you think replacing Simonsson with Lomax and we are in a better position you've got rocks in your head.As for the yardage comment who you got in our back 5 now that scares opposition coming out of yardage exactly.How are we better in one of the most important aspects of the modern game.
The system JR is going to run isn't covering up that crack unless they intend playing touch footy bringing the ball out.Right now if you ask me if you want to blunt us kick early chase hard and just bash whoever because there's no fear or threat there of a guy whose finding his front doubles up in yardage gets quick play the balls rolls opposing defensive lines that's what we've lost.We haven't a replacement on the horizon for that.For me losing Lomax is the worse of the 2 guys to lose purely because of what he brought.
I guarantee you the squad as a whole is going into this preseason at a much higher base than they started 2025 preseason. Its laughable to think theyre not.
What developed over 2025 was movement patterns in defence, defensive structures and our style iof attack. We had none of this to start the season this year . The players go into preseaon building upon that. We had a bunch of guys entering the season with 0-5 first grade games under their belt including our 9 who had 0 and 1 who had 1. theyre now in the mid 20s. Last seaon we didnt even know who our starting pack would be or where guys would fit.
Youre so focused on the upside of the players we lost that youre not looking at how they fit into our side and are comparing them like for like with their replacement and saying its a net loss. Simonsson isn't as good a player as Lomax, but if you think Lomax was a complete winger who got everything right I don;'t know what to tell you.
We finished the year with Joash Papalii and Dean Hawkins playing a lot of 6 and the attack didn't skip a beat.
You still haven't accepted the fact that see those guys mentioned they aren't starting in the halves next year so again you have to establish new combinations.
You talk systems all you like the mentioned took all season for the performance you mention took place.Look again because we are starting again in 27 when Pezet leaves.
Your talking upside which is great but you obviously refuse to look at the other side of it.You want this to work but it's not changing at the flick of a switch you've got to rebuild everytime you change it doesn't just slide a new half in there as we saw with Joash and Hawkins and everything's well.You think there aren't going to be any growing pains on that side if you think that your dreaming.
As for Lomax not on the wing the combo with Moses worked well and established itself your kidding if you think Simonssons anything close to a replacement.System regardless don't worry though you hold onto the I have a dream and this thing is going to go seamlessly.
I mean it's not as though the other teams in the comp aren't working to get better and are going to find ways to combat what we do right this is going to be a smooth bed of roses here we could put a bum like Harper in the Ryles setup and he'd flourish right.Yeah right.
Mate if you think im talking upside youre the complete opposite.
Of course a halves combination takes time to gel. Every team in the comp takes time to gel.. its obiously quicker for established sides but the game is built on your ability to compete in the cycle for long periods of time. The start of last year we'd compete in 5 min batches and it grew through out the year to where we were pretty much matching it with most teams for 70 odd minutes.
I dont think you realise how far removed we are from that side that started last year. Pezet and Moses finding their game together over the season will be crucial but im not losing sleep over an incomplete winger. We will obviously miss his yardage work .. no Question.. a bigger issue is the depth in our roster without signing anyone but theres a lot of time between now and we start playing and none of us have seen whats happened there.
For all your love of Lomax's game you ocmpletly disregard his weaknesses . The blokes played in 2 finals games way back in 2018. Jarryd Hayne was in our side then. His sides havent made it back . Of course that depends on the strength of side hes in but hes not some talent elevator that decides the outcome of games. He played a role within the side and it'll need to be replaced. Come back to this mid year.
Incomplete winger who exactly are you replacing this with.
If Lomax is incomplete whats Simonsson or whoever else you replace him with ?
I'm dealing with what I see we are losing too many good players to think roses are red nothing to see here.I see the holes if you choose not see them good for you but that doesn't make the holes go away.
Again your burning years off of Moses career in the same breath though right there is that.
Positive things are happening they are but we are a long way from anything and I still don't see enough off the park to buy into what your seeing.
Everybody knew when Anasta said it on his show. So let's not make out you were the first to mention it. Second you all had the shit when the Eels were all over the news with what was happening internally, now you hear shit. It's all kept very quiet & here you are complaining that the CEO didn't know. Of coarse everyone knew, he was caught in New Zealand talking to a particular player. People here have all the conspiracies & assumptions.
I don't know what you just said.....question is it devastating or not, the discussion echoes around this. Plenty of conspiracy talk, there always will be when you don't know whats behind this process. Personally I am starting to think that Lomax maybe a "lone wolf" type but what I think is meaningless in that sense, My devestation is his irraplaceability.....which is the difference of opinion that Snottie and me were working around i.e subjectiveness of him as a player.
Many seemed to think he was disaapointing towards the end of the season, personally again I though he was playing injured and this was born out by his withdrawal from the Australian Teams Tour. A tour everybody would crave if they were available. I watched him carefully during the season and I believe the guy put in every game, probably tried too hard trying to make up the difference of Moses being out.
Tinny I think you have us going down another road that we were not trying to cover i.e Anasta or manager.
We now are hearing that he would have stayed according to his manager, but we were happy to let him go. I find that a young coach like Ryles would not do that, knowing the effect it would have on his team. That comment about happy to let him go is overlooked by the fact that Parra put a stipulation on he could not play with any other NRL club for the course of his contract.
This aspect has been completely missed on the basis some say "we were happy to get rid of him" remember the lot on here saying the same about Hayne and Ramrada.
Ploppo, you’re spending so much time online I’m starting to think your pension should be paid directly to 1ee . Go play lawn bowls before your keyboard wears out
Old mate spends more time online than teenagers.
I am trying my best bit I am having trouble with the fools.......Re...
No fools like an Old Fool! .....Sorry that's not right, they are called Tools.....you qualify Chiefy!
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