Rising Australian rugby star Tyrel Lomax could be poached by All Blacks

PAYTO AND PANDA: He is the son of a famous Kiwi league star, and now Tyrel Lomax is being hunted by the All Blacks despite being called into Wallabies camp.

RISING star Tyrel Lomax has a huge decision to make.

We can reveal that the Melbourne Rebels prop, son of former Kiwis league enforcer John Lomax, has been contacted by the All Blacks to play in New Zealand with a view to turning him into a Test front-rower.

But Lomax was also a bolter for Michael Cheika’s Wallabies camp earlier this month.

The 20-year-old is still eligible for both countries because he has not played for Australia’s secondary senior side, the Wallabies Barbarians who last played against the French Barbarians last November.

PODCAST: Payto and Panda dissect the Waratahs’ loss to the Kings, Wallaby form issues and will Australia’s Super Rugby form ever improve?

Lomax, who is contracted to Melbourne until the end of next season, made his starting Super Rugby debut for the Rebels last weekend in their 9-all draw with the Sharks in Durban and was impressive in the scrum.

At 192cm and 127kg, and with his lineage, it’s no wonder there is a trans-Tasman bidding war for Lomax.

Having attended Wallabies camp, Lomax may have indicated that he is leaning towards Australia.

John Lomax playing for the Kiwis against Wigan in 1993. Picture: Mike Cooper

And if there are injuries, it is very possible that Cheika may ask Lomax to make his Test debut at some stage this year.

Lomax was the Australian under-20s player of the year in 2016.

SORRY, ALAN, YOU’RE WRONG

WARATAHS chief Andrew Hore has panned the idea that coaches should only be allowed to sign one-year contracts, a suggestion put forward by former Wallabies coach Alan Jones.

In the wake of the Waratahs’ loss to the Kings last weekend, Jones called for the sacking of NSW’s Daryl Gibson and said no coach should be guaranteed a job beyond one season.

“If we go in response to whether coaches should be on one-year deals, what happens if a bloke ends up being a sensation, what you do then?” Hore said.

“You haven’t captured them, they haven’t got security, he and his family are sitting there unsecure.

“We need to understand the environment we’re in and it’s not a level playing field like when Alan Jones was coaching.

“Northern hemisphere are generating an enormous amount of money and this comes back to the wider issue; their international and domestic game are contributing to their overall income.”

BEALE BACK ON THE HIGHVELD?

THE Wallabies are returning to Bloemfontein for the first time since Kurtley Beale’s epic long-range penalty goal won them a Test match against South Africa in 2010.

Beale celebrates nailing ‘that’ kick in Bloemfontein.

Australia faces the Springboks at the highveld on September 30 before travelling to Mendoza to play Argentina on October 7 during The Rugby Championship.

With superb timing, Beale will return to the Wallabies this year and be a certain traveller for the tour if fit.

Wallabies fans will remember his penalty on the fulltime siren, from just in front of the halfway mark, that sailed through the posts and handed Australia a 41-39 victory, ending a 47-year losing streak on the highveld.

REDS V THE WORLD

QUEENSLAND is looking to play a Test nation as early as next year during a break in Super Rugby.

The Reds would host the international side - yet to be determined - at Ballymore and it would be the first steps to making it a regular feature of their season as the global rugby calendar aligns by 2020.

The moves come amid European countries discussing potential world club challenge competitions, which for the first time could be possible with both northern and southern hemispheres sharing the same Test windows.

As the dominant states of Australian rugby, expect both Queensland and NSW to try to lure international teams to play exhibition games and midweek matches during those windows to get valuable income outside of Super Rugby games.

TAHS PLAY NUMBERS GAME

THERE were some raised eyebrows this week when the Waratahs claimed that last week’s crowd of 10,555 was not their lowest in history, but that it was in fact in 2012 against the Hurricanes.

The official crowd from that match was listed as 13,372 but Tahs officials say Ticketek numbers for the game say it was 10,196.

We tracked down the Waratahs chief executive at the time, Jason Allen - who now works in England - to find if they’d been fudging numbers on his watch.

“For a long time, years and years before I arrived, we’d counted numbers for locked in members, those who had commitment as stadium members, and we had problems for a long time with actual crowd numbers so that’s why we stopped publishing them,” Allen told us.

While members who may not have attended were counted then, there are still major issues with the way they’re done now, with catering staff and security among those who are potentially tallied as spectators.

Whatever way it’s done, it’s fair to assume that the crowd figures you see from clubs are not an accurate reflection of the number of people who have purchased tickets to watch games.

Meanwhile, the NSW Rugby Union posted a surprising net group profit of $262,611 in its annual report for 2016, helped by the improved Super Rugby broadcast deal.

KONNICHIWA

AUSTRALIAN rugby got a much-needed dose of love this week when the residents of a Japanese city begged for the Wallabies to base themselves in their town for a pre-World Cup camp in 2019.

The ARU has been fielding calls from Japanese government types pitching their local regions as the ideal spot for the Wallabies to hold a camp ahead of the 2019 World Cup, and also for the sevens teams ahead of the 2020 Olympics.

The Wallabies, for example, trained in Portugal in 2007 and at Notre Dame in 2015 prior to the tournament.

Kobe City and Shizuoka expressed interest but none matched the efforts of a delegation from Ehime prefecture.

More than 90,000 Japanese residents signed these documents urging the Wallabies to play in their home town during the World Cup.

Government and rugby officials from Ehime visited the ARU offices this week to do some lobbying and they brought with several huge stacks of paper.

On the paper was signatures of 90,012 residents who passionately “want the Wallabies to visit from the bottom of their hearts”.

The main city of Matsuyama doesn’t have its own Top 14 teams but apparently has two stadiums and a state-of-the-art sports complex, including fields, gyms, and even a synthetic training field.

The visit was arranged by Tatafu Polota-Nau’s uncle Hopi Taione, who attended university in the area.

​Interestingly, the stacks of paper were all in Japanese and the only translator available in the ARU office was one Chelsea Jones, daughter of Eddie.​

SUNWOLVES STEALING BLOSSOMS

MICHAEL Leitch agreeing to leave the Chiefs and join the Sunwolves in 2019 is the first of many Japanese players set to sign up for the MoonDogs.

Melbourne Rebels No.8 Amanaki Mafi and Reds flanker Hendrik Tui - who both also play for the Brave Blossoms - are in talks with the Sunwolves about returning to Tokyo. We hear it could even be compulsory for them to be playing Super Rugby in Japan to be eligible to play in the World Cup in 2019.

AGELESS WARRIOR

HOW about this for context of George Smith’s incredible longevity? One of his Reds teammates, 19-year-old Hamish Stewart, puffed out the candles on his second birthday cake just one week before Smith debuted in Super Rugby for the Brumbies in 2000.

Want more? The majority of the young Reds side are closer in age to Smith’s eldest son - who is 12 - than they are to Smith.

GREEN AROUND THE GILLS

THERE’S more drama for Australia’s women’s sevens team with superstar Ellia Green suffering a major knee injury.

It’s feared Green has ruptured her anterior cruciate ligament, which would rule her out for the rest of the year.

The Olympic gold medallists finished third in Kitakyushu last weekend and now trail New Zealand by 10 points on the overall standings with two tournaments to play.