The questions about Zac Lomax's rugby credentials took an unexpected turn this week when two people with direct knowledge of his teenage years stepped forward to offer their assessment. One is a current professional rugby player. The other ran the club where Lomax cut his teeth in the sport. Neither dismissed his chances, but both acknowledged the mountain he has to climb.
Lomax, 26, signed a two-year deal with the Western Force and Rugby Australia this week after his NRL career hit a complicated impasse. The former Dragons and Eels winger had played 133 games in the competition, represented NSW in State of Origin, and worn the Kangaroos jersey. But after requesting an early release last year to chase a move to the proposed R360 rebel rugby competition, his path became tangled in contractual disputes that ultimately blocked his return to the NRL. Rugby union became his way forward.
His announcement triggered scepticism in league circles, partly because he had not played rugby union since primary school. Yet the curiosity works both ways. Who knew the code-switcher better as a teenager: the sport that sent him to the NRL, or the one he is returning to?
Enter Triston Reilly, the Waratahs centre who this week was named to replace the injured Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii in the No.13 jersey. Reilly was selected alongside Lomax in the NSW Primary School XV in 2011, when both were 12-year-old representatives of small schools from regional NSW. Lomax came from Temora, a town in the Riverina region; Reilly from South West Rocks on the Mid North Coast. They played in the same backline, Lomax in the No.12 jersey as a centre, Reilly at No.10.
That team also contained future Wallabies lock Nick Frost, Waratah Will Harrison, and several other players who would go on to represent their codes at the highest level. The group captures a snapshot of rugby talent in rural NSW two decades ago.
Reilly remembers Lomax as a class act even then. "He's obviously a class player; he's had a long career in league since he was a young fella," Reilly said this week. "He's always been rangy and a big tall fella. He was a good player. He was always good coming through juniors and stuff. We were the same age as well, so I did cross paths with him going through junior league and union. He's always been good, that's why he's where he is."
Both men played dual codes as teenagers and built careers in the sport they ultimately chose. Reilly spent 18 months at Wests Tigers in the NRL, appearing in four games, before returning to rugby union in 2024. He credits his time in league with sharpening his physicality. The contact, he says, taught him how to carry the ball harder and how not to get driven back. Lessons that have transferred to rugby.
Lomax's experience goes the other direction. He left rugby behind after primary school for an accomplished league career but retained a connection to the code through his hometown. The Temora Tuskers Rugby Club, a country side in the Southern Inland Rugby Union Competition, had Lomax and his older brother Hayden both playing as juniors.
Kris Dunstan, the long-serving Tuskers coach and first-grade boss, watched both brothers develop. He rates Lomax's athletic ceiling highly but does not shy from realism about the road ahead. "It was clear he was very talented," Dunstan said. "Personally, I thought his brother was a better footballer back in the day. But he was a year older, I think, and a forward. Zac was a centre."
Dunstan noted that Temora, a small town, operates a fluid system where dual-code players fill gaps as needed. Both brothers could have gone either way. What stood out was Lomax's talent and adaptability. "But he will be in for a steep learning curve, no doubt," Dunstan said. "He's a top athlete; we've all seen that."
Lomax's own assessment aligns. He has described himself as a "novice" in rugby union, having not played the sport competitively since childhood. Western Force coach Simon Cron is managing expectations carefully, signalling that a debut against the Chiefs on 28 March may be ambitious.
The assignment is formidable. Lomax will need to master scrums, lineouts, and the tactical complexities of a sport he has watched but not lived in as a professional. The speed of the game differs. The positioning, the phases of play, the defensive structures all demand relearning. Even his exceptional athleticism, which served him so well in league, will need recalibration.
What works in his favour is time. His two-year contract carries him through the 2027 Rugby World Cup, hosted in Australia. That runway provides genuine opportunity to develop his skills and push for Wallabies selection. It also creates genuine jeopardy. Fail to adapt, and the code he left behind becomes closed to him until at least 2028 under his settlement with Parramatta.
By all accounts, Lomax is driven. Western Force officials have spoken of his professionalism and clarity of purpose. The dream of representing the Wallabies on home soil in a World Cup is tangible motivation for a player who has already achieved success at the elite level in another code.
Reilly's endorsement matters. So does Dunstan's honest assessment. Neither was dismissing Lomax as an outsider with no rugby pedigree. But neither was promising smooth sailing. The teenager who played centre for a country primary school XV two decades ago is returning to a game he left behind, older and more famous but essentially starting from the beginning. That tension between potential and uncertainty will define his next two years.