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‘It felt strange’: The All Black who could’ve been a Wallaby

(Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)

Hurricanes enforcer Tyrel Lomax finished last year’s end-of-season tour as the All Blacks’ first choice tighthead prop, but his career could’ve gone down a very different path.

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Lomax was almost a Wallaby.

Born in Canberra, Lomax lived on the other side of the ditch for the first four years of his life while his father played professional rugby league in the Australian capital.

But after moving to New Zealand as a young kid, Lomax dreamt of following in his father’s footsteps by playing international rugby league for the Kiwis.

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The future All Blacks’ father, John Lomax, even captained New Zealand – rising to legendary status during his famous career with the Canberra Raiders, North Queensland and Melbourne Storm.

For a while, that’s all Lomax wanted.

But as a teenager, Lomax’s family moved back across the Tasman to support his older brother who signed on to play rugby league.

That opportunity proved to be a turning point for an exciting young talent who’d also grown up playing the 13-player game. After moving to Australia, Tyrel began playing rugby union.

While he missed out on Australian Schoolboys selection, Lomax went on to star for the Junior Wallabies – and was even named the Australian U20s Player of the Year.

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Fast forward a few years, and Wallabies coach Michael Cheika invited Lomax to a training camp in 2017. The future All Black even posed for photos in a Wallabies jersey.

In an exclusive interview with RugbyPass, Lomax opened up about how that experience forced him to make a career-defining decision.

“There was sort of that little bit of pressure,” Lomax told RugbyPass.

“I’d been called into that Wallabies camp and sort of made me have to make my decision a little bit quicker, I couldn’t keep saying, ‘Oh I’m not too sure who I want to play for.’

“I had to make a decision and it was about where I wanted to play my career for the next 10 or so years and I just felt that was in New Zealand, closer to my family.

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“I was just looking at the bigger picture, my Dad played for the Kiwis and that was my dream as a kid.

“I always felt like I was a kiwi in Australia, I always just felt like New Zealand was my home.

“Had an opportunity to go into a Wallabies camp where I took that photo in a Wallabies jersey which was a bit strange but it was my first real crack at Super Rugby over there and it just happened pretty quickly.

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“That photo got taken and it felt a bit strange wearing that jersey because I always thought of myself as a kiwi that wanted to play for New Zealand.”

At the end of 2017, Melbourne Rebels front-rower Lomax had decided to head back to New Zealand to further his career.

Looking to live closer to his family, Lomax spoke with Super Rugby clubs in New Zealand, before inking a deal with the Dunedin-based Highlanders.

The former Brumbies development player signed a deal with the Landers ahead of the 2018 season, and went on to make his debut in the coveted black jersey later that year.

“When I went to the Highlanders, it just seemed like a really good culture. Ash Dixon picked me up in his Ute,” he added.

“The other couple of clubs that I went to were quite secretive about me being there, sort of came in, met the coaches, had a tour of the facilities on the boys’ days off.

“When I went to the Highlanders, Ash Dixon he picked me up and took me in, I met the team and was talking to them and watching them train and just had a really good culture.

“They were all in New Zealand, I’d made my decision then that I’d like to come back and play in New Zealand.”

Lomax later decided to move north to the capital, and is now one of the Hurricanes’ best players in Super Rugby Pacific.

The prop initially missed out on Ian Foster’s All Blacks squads for the three-Test series against Ireland last year, and also The Rugby Championship.

But after being called up for the tour to South Africa as injury cover, Lomax went on to star during the win over the Springboks at Ellis Park – and he hasn’t looked back since.

Following his sensational form in the black jersey last year, the prop is shaping up as a likely All Blacks squad member at this year’s Rugby World Cup in France.

“It’s a huge goal.

“Obviously there’s a lot of rugby to be played before then and it’s just about getting there, there’s been a few guys get injured along the way.

“Just trying to stay fit and healthy and hopefully play well enough that I get selected and it’s a good call from Fossie this time, not like last year.”

Following his breakout campaign in the black jersey, Lomax recently signed a contract extension with New Zealand Rugby through until the end of 2026.

Lomax will remain with the Hurricanes for the next few seasons, and is also aligned with the Tasman Mako in the NPC.

“When I moved over I wasn’t even sure if I was good enough to make the All Blacks, they were always the best team in the world.

“I didn’t know what it was going to be like when I came over here but definitely no regrets.

“Even if I didn’t play for the All Blacks, I probably still wouldn’t have any regrets.”

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Comments

10 Comments
G
Greg 596 days ago

Totally agree, Jo. NZ front row is not the issue.

A
Andrew 598 days ago

Was pretty hopeless in his firstvstint in the black jersey then came alive last year. Best TH in NZ now.

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G
GrahamVF 16 minutes ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

"has SA actually EVER helped to develop another union to maturity like NZ has with Japan," yes - Argentina. You obviously don't know the history of Argentinian rugby. SA were touring there on long development tours in the 1950's

We continued the Junior Bok tours to the Argentine through to the early 70's

My coach at Grey High was Giepie Wentzel who toured Argentine as a fly half. He told me about how every Argentinian rugby club has pictures of Van Heerden and Danie Craven on prominent display. Yes we have developed a nation far more than NZ has done for Japan. And BTW Sa players were playing and coaching in Japan long before the Kiwis arrived. Fourie du Preez and many others were playing there 15 years ago.


"Isaac Van Heerden's reputation as an innovative coach had spread to Argentina, and he was invited to Buenos Aires to help the Pumas prepare for their first visit to South Africa in 1965.[1][2] Despite Argentina faring badly in this tour,[2] it was the start of a long and happy relationship between Van Heerden and the Pumas. Izak van Heerden took leave from his teaching post in Durban, relocated to Argentina, learnt fluent Spanish, and would revolutionise Argentine play in the late 1960s, laying the way open for great players such as Hugo Porta.[1][2] Van Heerden virtually invented the "tight loose" form of play, an area in which the Argentines would come to excel, and which would become a hallmark of their playing style. The Pumas repaid the initial debt, by beating the Junior Springboks at Ellis Park, and emerged as one of the better modern rugby nations, thanks largely to the talents of this Durban schoolmaster.[1]"


After the promise made by Junior Springbok manager JF Louw at the end of a 12-game tour to Argentina in 1959 – ‘I will do everything to ensure we invite you to tour our country’ – there were concerns about the strength of Argentinian rugby. South African Rugby Board president Danie Craven sent coach Izak van Heerden to help the Pumas prepare and they repaid the favour by beating the Junior Springboks at Ellis Park.

147 Go to comments
J
JW 6 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

147 Go to comments
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