Shane Flanagan shuts down Zac Lomax player swap, drops Ben Hunt bombshell

Dragons coach Shane Flanagan has hosed down rumours Zac Lomax will be involved in a player swap while emphatically declaring club captain Ben Hunt isn’t going anywhere.

Dragons art for Lomax and Hunt

Shane Flanagan has shut down a Zac Lomax player swap, as the St George Illawarra coach declares Ben Hunt will not only see out his contract but potentially stay on at the club.

It comes as the coach revealed the club will look internally at replacing Lomax before exploring the player market.

Lomax was released from the final two years of his deal earlier this week, and at the time the club had indicated if a viable option for a player swap was offered the outside back would be allowed to walk away in 2024.

But Flanagan hosed down those suggestions on Thursday despite speculation a player swap with Parramatta, the favourite to land Lomax, was on the cards.

“There’s no player swap going on, Zac is here until the rest of the year,” Flanagan said.

“I don’t know where all that chat has come from. We’ll just move and hopefully this is the last time we speak about it.

“I know you all have jobs, but this is not news, this has been going on for weeks.

“All the people I talk to are dead set sick of it - and so am I.”

Zac Lomax will not be involved with a player swap. Picture: David Swift

The Lomax release has put the Hunt saga back into the spotlight, after the halfback requested a release from his contract after losing confidence in Dragons management after Anthony Griffin was sacked and becoming disillusioned with the direction of the club.

But Flanagan said Hunt would not only see out his deal, which runs until the end of 2025, but could stay on even longer.

“Ben has nothing to do with Zac Lomax,” Flanagan said.

“Ben wants to be here. Ben will see out his contract and maybe go further so don’t confuse the issue of Ben and Zac. They are two different issues.”

The coach insisted there had been no falling out with his star player and that Lomax wanting out had made his place at the club untenable.

“There’s been stories going around we’ve had arguments, there has been none of that. Zac has made a decision that he wants to leave the club. It’s not the first time this has happened, it’s not going to be the last,” Flanagan said.

“Well we can’t have people that don’t want to be here. If you don’t want to be here, it’s hard to turn it around, and that hasn’t happened so we’ve got to move forward.”

Lomax’s release will add another $1.6 million to the Red V’s war chest as the coach tries to rebuild the roster.

While the Dragons have already been linked to the likes of Penrith star Sunia Turuva, Flanagan revealed he would prefer to replace Lomax with a junior player already in the system.

The likes of rising centre Savelio Tamale, Jesse Williams and Sione Finau are vying for the shot to take over from Lomax in 2025.

“Without a doubt. We have some good young kids coming through in our reserve grade and SG Ball side,” Flanagan said.

“It’s something we have invested a lot of money in, our juniors. We’ll look there before we look anywhere else.”

Dragons coach Shane Flanagan says captain Ben Hunt isn’t going anywhere. Picture: Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images

But Flanagan also said the club was in a position to “aggressively” hit the player market, where the likes of Turuva and potentially Nelson Asofa-Solomona are available.

“All quality players are on our radar. We haven’t identified one particular player as yet. It just happened in the last week or two. We’ll assess the marker and make a good decision for the club,” Flanagan said.

Asofa-Solomona is signed at Melbourne until the end of 2027, with a mutual option in 2028, but there are rumblings the club is unhappy with the behemoth forward after returning from to the pre-season below fitness.

“We get linked with everyone at the moment. We’ll assess any player that comes on the market. Nelson is under contract but if all of a sudden he does become available we’ll assess it,” Flanagan said.

Originally published as Shane Flanagan shuts down Zac Lomax player swap, drops Ben Hunt bombshell