Tyrel Lomax: the Canberra-born son of a Kiwis captain who chose the All Blacks

Tyrel Lomax was born in Canberra, played for Australia's Under 20s and made his Super Rugby debut for the Melbourne Rebels. He also grew up in Wellington as the son of a Kiwis rugby league captain, and he always wanted to play for New Zealand. Since he came home in 2017 he has started a Rugby World Cup final at tighthead prop, played 55 Tests for the All Blacks, been named New Zealand Rugby's Māori Player of the Year and, in June 2026, won a Super Rugby title with the Hurricanes.

A league family

Tyrel Shae Lomax was born in Canberra on 16 March 1996. His father, John Lomax, is a former Kiwis prop from Wainuiomata who moved to Australia in 1993 to play for the Canberra Raiders. John played 65 games for the Raiders from 1993 to 1996 and is in the club's hall of fame, then played for the North Queensland Cowboys and finished his career with the Melbourne Storm. He also captained the Kiwis.

After his father retired, the family lived in Wellington, and Tyrel spent the years from four to 15 there, playing rugby league. He went to St Patrick's College, Silverstream, for Years 9 and 10. League was the dream. "I loved the physicality of it," he told the NZ Herald in 2024, and his first goal was to follow his father into a Kiwis jersey.

His iwi are Muaūpoko and Ngāi Tūhoe.

Choosing a code in Canberra

At 15 he moved back to Canberra and to St Edmund's College. For a while he played both codes: under 16 league on a Friday night, rugby on Saturday, then his own under 15 grade on Sunday. That worked until the First XV, when he had to choose. In his final year at school he committed to rugby union and joined the Tuggeranong Vikings club with some close mates. He started at No 8, but was soon moved into the front row.

He took to it quickly. He was picked for the Australian Schoolboys in 2014, played 10 games for Australia Under 20 in 2015 and 2016, and in 2016 was named Australia's Under 20 player of the year. He played in the National Rugby Championship for the Canberra Vikings in 2015 and Melbourne Rising in 2016. The Brumbies gave him a training-group contract, but in 2016 the Melbourne Rebels signed him on a two-year deal, and in 2017 he made his Super Rugby debut off the bench against the Blues, a 58-16 loss. He played 13 games for the Rebels that season.

Coming home

"I always felt like I was a New Zealander and a Kiwi," he said later, adding that he only began thinking about Test rugby in his first Super Rugby season. In September 2017 Tasman announced that he had committed his future to New Zealand. He was living in Nelson and training with the Mako as a guest while he waited for the Rebels to release him. He admitted he had grown up in Wellington without knowing where Nelson was.

The Tasman coach at the time, Leon MacDonald, did not hold back. "Tyrel's a world class prop with enormous potential," he said. The release came through in time for Lomax to play that year's Mitre 10 Cup, and he made his Tasman debut against Otago at Forsyth Barr Stadium. The Highlanders had announced his signing in September, the same month as Tasman. At the end of the year he was one of 10 new caps on the Māori All Blacks' tour to Canada and France.

An early Test debut

His first Highlanders season was in 2018. That October, with Tasman in the Mitre 10 Cup semi-finals, he was named, to his own surprise, in an extended All Blacks squad for a Test against Japan. Learning tighthead takes patience, he said at the time, and he had not expected the call so soon. On 3 November 2018 he came off the bench in Tokyo as the All Blacks won 69-31, with Luke Whitelock as captain, and became All Black number 1180. He then went on with the Māori All Blacks, coming off the bench against Brazil and starting against Chile.

In 2019 he missed just one game for the Highlanders, the NZ Rugby Museum notes. On 26 October that year he started at tighthead in the Mitre 10 Cup Premiership final at Trafalgar Park in Nelson, where Tasman beat Wellington 31-14 to finish the season unbeaten and win the title.

The Hurricanes and a slow climb

He moved to the Hurricanes in 2020. Back home in Wellington, he learned from Owen Franks, who spent two seasons at the Hurricanes, and later from Nepo Laulala in the All Blacks. In September 2020 he came off the bench for the South Island in the North v South match at Sky Stadium and scored a try in the South's 38-35 win, and that performance helped win him an All Blacks recall, the NZ Rugby Museum notes.

The next two seasons were mostly spent on the bench behind Laulala and Ofa Tu'ungafasi. In 2020 he played five Tests, starting only against Argentina in Sydney, a 25-15 loss. In 2021 he played eight, six of them as a replacement, with starts against Argentina in Brisbane and Italy in Rome.

Then, in 2022, he was left out of the All Blacks for the home series against Ireland, and played for the Māori All Blacks against the Irish instead. "In 2022 when I didn't get picked that was definitely a big wake-up call," he told the Herald.

Ellis Park

The turn came in South Africa that August. He came into the touring squad as an injury replacement, came off the bench in the 26-10 loss in Mbombela, and was then picked to start at Ellis Park a week later, in a match the Herald later described as the one the All Blacks had to win to save Ian Foster's job. They won 35-23. The Herald called it the turning point of Lomax's career; Lomax said simply that he was given a chance and took it.

He started every Test he played for the rest of 2022: both Argentina Tests, both Bledisloe Cup Tests, including the 39-37 win in Melbourne, the 55-23 win over Wales in Cardiff and the 25-25 draw with England at Twickenham.

Thirty stitches and a World Cup final

In 2023 he started all four of his pre-World Cup Tests, but in the warm-up match against South Africa at Twickenham on 25 August he was off after 14 minutes with a gash in his thigh from a bladed boot. It needed 30 stitches. "My initial reaction was 'my World Cup is over'," he said later. He missed the opening loss to France and the win over Namibia, came off the bench in the 96-17 win over Italy in Lyon, and was forced off after nine minutes of the next match against Uruguay with his leg heavily strapped.

The All Blacks' scrum coach Greg Feek had praised his game against Italy, given he had barely been able to bend his leg. Lomax was fit for the knockout rounds and started all three: the 28-24 quarter-final win over Ireland, the 44-6 semi-final win over Argentina and the final against South Africa at the Stade de France on 28 October, lost 12-11.

A fixture at tighthead

Under Scott Robertson in 2024 he started 12 of the All Blacks' 14 Tests, missing only Fiji in San Diego and Japan in Yokohama. The Herald noted that he played 76 minutes in Cape Town and 71 in Sydney, long shifts for a front-rower. He describes himself as an introverted man who likes to do his job and get on with it, and he has said the modern prop must be able to catch, pass, carry and tackle as well as scrummage.

At the 2024 New Zealand Rugby Awards he was one of three finalists for All Blacks Player of the Year, with Tupou Vaa'i and the winner, Wallace Sititi, and he won the Tom French Memorial Māori Player of the Year.

Injuries, and a long-term deal

Injuries curtailed his 2025 season. He came back from injury for the third Test against France in Hamilton in July, a 29-19 win, but needed an x-ray on his thumb afterwards and missed both Tests in Argentina. He returned off the bench in the 24-17 win over South Africa at Eden Park and started the 43-10 loss in Wellington and the 33-24 win over Australia at Eden Park, his last Test of the year.

During the 2026 Super Rugby season, just back from another injury, he signed a three-year extension with New Zealand Rugby, the Hurricanes and Tasman, to the end of 2029, taking him through the 2027 World Cup in Australia and the 2029 British and Irish Lions tour of New Zealand. The new All Blacks coach, Dave Rennie, said what stood out from coaching against him was "how athletic and physically imposing he is on both sides of the ball". The Hurricanes coach Clark Laidlaw called him a world-class tighthead and said he expected him to be a leader in the team.

Champions

On 20 June 2026 the Hurricanes won their first Super Rugby title in ten years, beating the Chiefs 60-5 in the final in front of 33,022 at Hnry Stadium in Wellington. Lomax came off the bench in the 50th minute. In the Test season that followed he came off the bench in the 34-32 win over France in Christchurch, started against Italy and Ireland, started all three Tests in South Africa, including the 33-16 win in Johannesburg, and came off the bench in the fourth, against the Springboks in Baltimore.

He did not play in either Bledisloe Cup Test in October. On 24 October the All Blacks said he had been managing a disc injury in his neck since the Super Rugby season, that it remained aggravated, and that he would stay home for treatment instead of touring Britain.

Style and standing

Coaches have tended to talk about his size and athleticism. MacDonald saw a world-class prospect at 21. Rennie, who has coached against him, picked out his physical presence on attack and defence, and Feek praised his comeback from the leg wound at the World Cup.

He has started 38 of his 55 Tests, every one of them at tighthead, and has come off the bench 17 times. Tests have not brought him a try yet, though he scored one for the South Island in 2020.

The person whose assessment matters most to him is still his father. "He's the first guy I call after a game," Lomax said in 2024, because his father gives him an honest review of his play.

Where he is now

Lomax, 30, is at home being treated for the neck injury while the All Blacks tour Britain. He is in the Hurricanes squad for 2027, and his contract runs to the end of 2029.

Career at a glance

Test figures are from RUGBE's match-by-match All Blacks data to 17 October 2026. Club, provincial and age-grade figures are from Wikipedia, updated September 2026; the Māori All Blacks figure is from allblacks.com. His club, Stoke, is as listed by the NZ Rugby Museum.