Flanno shoots down Lomax swap
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. Hopefully this is the last time we speak about it. All the people I talk to are dead set sick of it – and so am I.”
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.
But 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.