McDermott: Australia has 'bigger fish to fry' as rumours swirl over NRL star

Tate McDermott isn’t interested in talking up Rugby Australia’s possible recruitment of former NRL star Zac Lomax, saying the Wallabies have plenty of depth in wingers.

The star scrumhalf was one of 40 Australian players who assembled this week at a training camp in Sydney, where they reviewed 2025 and looked ahead, with his Queensland coach, Les Kiss, taking over the Test reins from Joe Schmidt in July.

McDermott skipped the fitness testing as he is still unable to run after tearing his hamstring during the Bledisloe Cup in September, leaving a question mark on when he will be able to lead out the Reds in Super Rugby Pacific.

“I don’t have a target date just yet, but we’re really happy with how they’re progressing,” the 27-year-old said.

“With these injuries, it can be anywhere from four to six months, so once I get back running, which will hopefully be at the end of the month, I’ll be able to give you a clearer picture.

“At the moment, all things are going really positively, and I’ve had no hiccups.”

McDermott was asked about the prospect of Lomax joining the Wallabies after the NSW State of Origin representative quit Parramatta and was linked to breakaway rugby competition R360, which was then put on ice.

He has since been linked to the Brumbies and Western Force, while the Melbourne Storm are believed to have made a recent bid to lure Lomax back to the NRL.

McDermott felt current players should be the priority for RA, naming Test star Max Jorgensen, who comes off contract at the end of 2026.

“I think we’ve got bigger fish to fry, to be honest,” McDermott said.

“I mean, anyone of that calibre, of course, they’d be having discussions but we’ve got so many talented players here – you only have to look at Max Jorgensen, for example, and the progression we saw from him over that 12-month period.

“That wing position’s got incredible depth.”

McDermott was pressed further on the likelihood of a player such as Lomax, who only played the 15-man code in primary school, making a successful transition.

“I think it’s possible, but with all due respect I don’t really care, to be honest.

“My focus is on the players that are here and the players that want to play rugby union.

“Yeah, that’s all I can say on that.”

Suffering 10 losses in a calendar year for the first time, including losing the British and Irish Lions series, the Wallabies finished the year seventh in the world rankings.

McDermott said key areas identified for work were delivering 80-minute performances, frailty under the high ball, set piece consistency and patchy defence.

“To be competitive on the international stage, you can’t just play for 40 minutes,” he said.

“We just didn’t put enough, enough time together to get to win those little battles across the trip and across the whole year.

“We got lucky a couple of times last year where we left our run pretty late, and a couple of moments that we should have won towards the back-end of the trip that really hurt us.

“We’ve spoken a little bit about obviously the high-ball area, just being consistent in our set piece, more consistent in our defence approach as well.

“So there’s a number of areas we need to fix, but there’s also a number of areas that we’re really good at, but we just weren’t good at that for long enough throughout the whole year.”