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Opinion
July 27, 2026 — 11:54am
“When I first signed, I just knew it was the right place for me. I knew straight away … I just love the culture.” (Zac Lomax on joining Parramatta, February 12, 2025)
“I’m so stoked. Everyone at the Force and Rugby Australia has shown the faith in me. I can’t wait to get there.” (Zac Lomax on joining the Western Force to play rugby union, March 10, 2026)
“I’m all in … To be a part of history is what I was leaning towards straight away.” (Zac Lomax on joining the PNG Chiefs, July 26, 2026)
Between those announcements, there were two more ghost Lomax moves: to Rugby360 and to the Melbourne Storm, both of whom would, doubtless, have had his undying loyalty if he could only have got there.
It would have added up to five professions of love for a new culture, a new code and making history, in 17 months. Even in a time when a signature on a contract is barely worth the price of the ink, a Lomax commitment is clearly a fungible token.
For the Chiefs, who have become too big to fail, signing Lomax is a smart play – he’s high-profile, he’s an Origin player, and he’s still only 26 – and another sign of the club’s lust for immediate, up-front success while building its long-term Marshall Plan for Pacific domination.
As for Lomax’s motives, he dropped the biggest clue when, after moving to rugby union a few months ago, he said: “I don’t want to get to the end of my career and think about, you know, should I have given that a crack.”
He’s certainly not going to regret any roads not taken.
Doueihi or don’t he?
In a curious juxtaposition of events leading into the weekend, there was speculation about Latrell Mitchell and Tom Trbojevic having their pay reduced because of how many matches they miss with injury, while the Tigers’ Adam Doueihi, who has received many months’ worth of paid injury time in his career, chose not to play at all if selected at lock.
The contrast was glaring.
You had two superstars whose disappointment must be even greater than their fans’, injured when trying too hard to get on the field, then being implicitly criticised for not justifying their pay packets.
And on the other hand, you had a first-grader deciding against playing because (his version reportedly) he wanted to highlight “issues” within the club.
Wayne Bennett said, rightly, that docking injured players’ pay was a ridiculous idea. It is at complete odds with rugby league’s DNA as a sport aligned with the rise of the labour movement. In a fair system, a worker is not penalised for bad luck.
But docking the pay of a worker who decides not to turn up? Hmm.
In his press conference after the Tigers’ loss to Canberra, coach Benji Marshall walked on eggshells. He said of his players: “This is their job they get paid pretty well to do, so you’ve got to go out there and do your job.”
Then, when questioned about whether a voluntary non-player (Doueihi) deserved his pay, Marshall said: “We’re also in a world where if you don’t feel mentally right to play, you can’t make him play. It’s tough, we’re men, we have feelings, we’re in a day and age where you need to express those feelings, and he did.”
Let’s just say Doueihi was allowed a week of paid compassionate leave.
Fainu comeback too much even for rugby league
“Jailed ex-Manly hooker wanted to play league wearing an ankle bracelet” is not only the best rugby league headline of 2026 but the most rugby league headline of 2026.
Manase Fainu was, in 2019, a very promising NRL hooker for Manly and a linchpin of the club’s plans to build a premiership-winning team around the Fainu and Trbojevic families.
It all came unstuck when Manase attacked someone at a Mormon church dance with a knife he pulled out of the sling he was wearing for an injured shoulder (the story kept getting more and more rugby league).
Now on weekend release after serving his custodial sentence, Fainu has recently applied to play A grade for the Alexandria Rovers. The NSWRL knocked him back on several grounds, including the risk of him causing an injury with his ankle bracelet.
A donk on the head from a heavy-duty, impact-resistant polycarbonate GPS device would be a novel excuse for missing a tackle.
You’d have thought Corrective Services could easily trace Fainu without the bracelet while he was on the field, but we don’t make the rules.
Russell Packer set a precedent for returning to the NRL in 2016 after serving a prison term for assault, and ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys is known to like redemption stories on the scale of Greek mythology. But in today’s NRL, a Manase Fainu comeback would require more twists and unlikely favours from the gods than Odysseus’ comeback from Troy.
Christmas in July
Cronulla are playing better than anyone in the NRL, which makes them the premiers if the grand final was in July.
Checking the NRL casualty list, Cronulla are also the one club with a virtually empty injury ward, only Tom Hazelton being out of action for the weekend.
The Sharks would be the envy of Newcastle, who have just lost the Dylans, Brown and Lucas, for the season and Kalyn Ponga for weeks.
Melbourne are without Cameron Munster and Harry Grant among others, North Queensland Tom Dearden, the Dolphins Isaiya Katoa and Souths and Manly have the NRL’s longest casualty lists.
As the finals approach, it will be better to be lucky than good.
