Lomax’s eye-catching Wallabies audition after Spring Tour snub
Wallabies legend Stephen Larkham gave Zac Lomax a big tick as the code-hopper strongly pushed his case for a maiden Test call-up over the weekend.
The 27-year-old ex-NRL star has endured a frustrating season with injury but started at outside centre for Larkham’s Australia A side in New Jersey.
Zac Lomax in action for Australia A. Stan
In an hour of action against the United States, Lomax set up a try for Kalani Thomas, made a try-saving strip to deny Conner Mooneyham and produced a chip-and-chase play that resulted in a yellow card to Eagles prop Mason Pedersen for tripping.
Admittedly against a weak opponent, Lomax also showed off his brilliant aerial abilities in the 52-0 shutout win at Sports Illustrated Stadium.
“He had a late call-up for us over here, came in late to the tour and picked things up really quickly,” Australia A coach Larkham said.
“Hasn’t played a lot of 13, played a fair bit of wing and is probably a little bit more comfortable on the wing.
“I thought he did a really good job gelling with the players, connecting off the field, understanding his role on the field, and he got involved tonight, which was pleasing. He’s really good under the high ball, and we tweaked a few things through the week to make sure that he got a few of those opportunities.”
Matt Faessler, Corey Toole, Mac Grealy, Nick Frost, Harry McLaughlin-Phillips, Joe Brial and Lington Ieli were Australia A’s other try-scorers.
The Wallabies are now in London preparing for next Monday’s (AEDT) Nations Championship clash with England at Twickenham.
Lomax may need an injury to crack into the squad after Kurtley Beale, James Ramm and Harry Potter were all selected ahead of him.
England is ranked fifth in the world to Australia’s seventh.
Wallabies coach Les Kiss is expecting England to play with more attacking freedom than they traditionally have.
“An extremely experienced team,” former London Irish boss Kiss told reporters.
Les Kiss says negotiations with Mark Nawaqanitawase have been positive. Getty Images
“The game that they’re playing, it certainly has the tenets of set piece and kicking as central, but you can see that they’re trying to use a few other concepts and building that into their game.
“(Attack coach) Lee Blackett is a very savvy operator and I know him well. They’re going to have an attacking edge to them as well.
“So there are real challenges that we know they’re ahead of us, but that’s what we need. We need that now. This is the last window before we close out into what will become a massive year for every country.”
The Wallabies were easily outclassed in two Bledisloe Cup losses to the All Blacks in October, but Blackett was still talking them up.
“They are a dangerous side. Even in those two matches recently - probably the first Test more - I thought they had New Zealand under all kinds of pressure in that first half,” he said.
“They had them on the back foot, so you’re just worried that they put that 80-minute performance in.
“Look, definitely fearful. They’ve got great athletes. They’ve got, when we talk about breakdown in Europe, we’ve also got to talk about their breakdown. That’s a super strength of theirs.
Fraser McReight poses with the John Eales Medal on Thursday night. Getty
“It has been for years, but it really is a super strength, so there’s plenty of things to deal with it, and yeah, you just don’t want to allow them to put that 80-minute performance. But again, we take our focus, we put the focus back on ourselves. Like, they’ve got to deal with us as well.”
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