The Lomax is now the Gomax. Momax is now Nomax.
And the fallout on Monday morning at Kellyville?
Well, there was a bit of a media presence around the community centre (The Today Show?), but the vibe that I got was that there was more external noise than internal concerns.
As for the messaging from fans, the reaction has been everything from lack of faith in management, to glad the whole Lomax saga is over.
To be fair, the majority of the response has been the latter. Fans have been expecting it and don’t want players wearing the Blue and Gold if they’d rather do something else or be somewhere else.
For the squad members it was business as usual. And given that Lomax had not commenced the preseason there was zero disruption.
In fact, the vibe was very upbeat, and the competitive spirit within the group was on show.
The first Tour De Parra training shirt awards had been handed out. No surprise to see Ryley Smith in the Gold jersey. The young rake is a standard setter.
Sam Tuivaiti was wearing the green shirt and emerging forward Tyrese Lokeni was in the white.
The last jersey award, the spots, went to Teancum Brown. I only get to see part of each day’s work, the field session. There is so much more that happens in a day. So it was quite validating to have a player that I suggested had stepped up in the first two weeks also recognised by the coaches.
The mix of shirts as the fellas take the field
These weren’t the only colours added for the week. Tallyn Da Silva was sporting the blonde locks – the likely consequence of spinning the punishment wheel.
Back out on the field were Jordan Samrani, Bailey Simonsson, Saxon Pryke and Matt Doorey. In fact, Bailey, Saxon and Matt have been back in work prior to now, but most of their preseason has been indoor rehab. It was outdoor based this morning. Junior Paulo was an interested spectator and indicated to me that he’d be returning next week.
Junior watches on (image Eels media)
Back to this competitive session.. It all started with a fun warm up.
The 28 players were split into four teams of 8, with staff filling out the teams to make it 32. Using a combination of static short kicks and passes in a type of relay formation, the goal was to be the first team to get the ball to the last player who’d ground it for a try.
Winning celebrations
It would be a major understatement to say that there were noisy celebrations every time a team won a race. When it all wrapped up, the winner of the final race was hotly disputed with Ryles’ call signalling big celebrations.
From there, every drill seemed to have its share of noise or competition.
Team (image Eels media)
From kick and catch work by the outside backs (with defensive pressure) to forward hit ups into bump pads, the intensity was up a notch on the first two weeks.
Even the quick sprint drills with the outside backs involved a runner and a chaser. And there was a mixed bag of winners there with the spoils shared between runners and chasers.
Towards the end of the session, a simple three on two, one tackle “game” must have had some bragging rights involved as there were plenty of cheers every time a try was scored or a play was shut down.
The passing looked sharp – the form, the hands, the eyes! (Image Eels media)
Outside of the competitive edge across the morning, I did note that the passing and the lines run in the ruck drills were particularly sharp. The intensity of the attack left me convinced that it had an attack focus and not defence.
For those who are always keen to know about physical conditioning, I can report that there was a focus on strength today.
Eels forever!
Sixties
Wow, the training must have started very early this morning, being Tuesday the 18th! Enjoy the posts and thank you for your dedication.
Hey Glenn, it’s a reflection of the time of day that I wrote this – during my early hours of the morning insomnia!
Am I the only one that wants Paulo to have a bigger break? Had a big season for eels and Samoa. On the older side now too. Must say great leadership
Probably a fair call.
Absolutely devastated in losing Lomax, he is irreplaceable in this team considering what he offers.
Also disappointed that his contract was not enforced and could not help but think that Jim Saratinos was distancing himself from the decision by openly saying it was Ryles choice and the board supported his decisions.
Ther are situations whereas the coach can and needs to be overruled unless there are circumstances we do not understand. I fear something like that has happened!
It is very easy for anyone to say we don’t want someone here that doesn’t want to be!
That’s nice rhetoric but this is a professional game, what message does this say to anyone that wants to exit their contract.
The reality is that we cannot just go out and buy another “Lomax” as they don’t exist in that format. We have only a few players of that standing and the positions that he covers are probably the weakest we have in our junior and back up processes.
This should have been explained to Lomax and that we would look for someone possibly in the next 12 months but sorry Zac, we cannot afford to lose you now!
In the interim he has a great effect on our chances this year and I believe outside of the rhetoric that morale within the whole structure from Moses down will be affected.
Can’t smooth this one over Craig, this is a disaster!
I agree with some of your points.
Agree ..
Zac is a massive loss and the very thought that Bailey is a like for like substitution is .. well it belongs in fairy tales.
His carries out of the back field are legendary when you look at the stats.
We have no one at the club who can compete in the air like Zac did.
As big Pete said .. I do hope that Zac is getting the professional advice and guidance that he requires.
Disagee – mate you can’t attribute any blame to the club here. I’m sure we wanted to keep him but it was plain to see that he wanted to go.
If he was agitating to join another RL club , I’d understand any enforcement action but that’s not the case.
He could have just hopped on a plane to Japanese Rugby and left it like that.
Also, when reports that a player was told not to report to pre season training everyone jumped on Mattersons case as being the subject. Perhaps it was all about Lomax ?
That’s the problem, we just don’t know if Zac was a great influence or a terrible influence to the playing group.
What if Zac was spending his time trying to recruit others to join 360?
The club has done some weird and stupid things over the years but letting Zac go isnt one of them.
your last sentence needs to stand up, the proof may never be known and why was it unreasonable to enforce his contract……the answer to that question qualifies your statement……
He wanted out, so what was the alternative? Should we have enforced Lomax to stay and play a game he’s obviously not interested in and played him in reggies whilst on 650k per year for another 3 years? As Spark mentioned, It’s a very different argument if he wanted to leave for another NRL team, but he’s not and cannot for 3 years.
I thought he actually had a poor year in comparison to last year and his body language was just not right. Was he a negative influence on others? Did he have an attitude problem?
We will never know the answers, but Ryles and co do and they were happy for him to go, albeit with a couple of clauses.
Sometimes it’s better to back the coaching staff and club because they know a hell of a lot more than mere, old keyboard heroes.
😭😭😭😭 cry me a river
I’m not trying to smooth anything over. If you heard the podcast you know that I was not in a good mood over what had transpired. I am deeply concerned about our outside back depth. There is no like for like replacement of Lomax, so I’m not going to dive into that. But I reckon that Bailey will, as he’s done in the past, be a more than capable first grade winger. And who knows what 26 has in store if he’s injury free.
For mine we need to spend the coin on a big name signing, and it could be a forward, and 3-4 solid depth purchases.
your last sentence needs to stand up, the proof may never be known and why was it unreasonable to enforce his contract……the answer to that question qualifies your statement……
I don’t lose sleep over Lomax leaving but I’m 100% with your thought line. If we don’t want to force someone to play when they don’t want to be here, then we should seek maximum compensation to release him when he simply won’t meet his legal obligations by honouring his contract. What a joke if we just say ‘OK, no sweat, off you go’, every player agent will just exploit us when more money is on offer, and R360 will approach Moses next. I’m a bit confused by everyone thinking ‘it’s a business’ these days but contracts get trashed just because a better offer is in the wind. Businesses don’t operate that way. Any business manager would straight away be thinking ‘ 3 years to run @ $700k pa, that’s $2.1 million discounted to present value say $1.9 million…that’s the price to buy your contract’…have we done this (or similar)? And the 10 year ban from V’Landys, good one.
Eels fans need to stop being so negative.
We lost far more fire power than just a Lomax coming into 2025.
Doomers said we lost our heart & spirit, our best forward, and several of our best Jnrs.
What happened? Jason Ryles made extremely tough decisions which at the time seemed risky or better yet, too bold for a rookie coach.
The outcome: every player who he replaced either came in better for the eels, or were younger therefore having much greater upside, and on lesser salaries, then filled us with more spine depth than we had ever had at parra in like 10 years.
If there’s anything we should trust – it’s Jason Ryles and his inner circle of decision makers at our club.
Like BA in his prime years, Jason’s shown he can get the best out of players. Even ones who didn’t stand out at other clubs as stars so to speak.
Whatever happens, let the pre season be a great one.. and never sleep on Jason Ryles.
I’m sure our club and team is in good hands moving forwards under his leadership. Jason’s already shown he has an eye for talent, and a brilliant decision maker regarding roster management.
I love Lomax too but if he was on up to 800k potentially, our club will be far better off using that money elsewhere. We need another tier 1 forward.
Koloamagni is more valuable to the eels over the next 4 years moving forwards as Paulo ages. If we snag Keon our middle forwards will be in better shape should Jnr get injured or slow down over th coming seasons.
We obviously need another outside back! But trust in Jason Ryles. This guy knows what he is doing. Until proven otherwise, we should just trust he knows what’s best for us. 🤝