Hurricanes' Tyrel Lomax eager to haunt Brumbies in ACT return

The prop will return to Canberra for Saturday's quarter-final against the ACT Brumbies.

Lomax is the son of former New Zealand Kiwis and Canberra Raiders prop John Lomax and was part of the ACT pathway before playing for the Junior Wallabies.

The former St Edmund's student eventually moved to Melbourne to get his first Super Rugby experience before he returned to New Zealand and his career took off.

Lomax enjoyed a breakout year in 2022 and has represented the All Blacks on 23 occasions.

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Holland said the 127 kilogram front rower lifts every time he returns to Canberra and backed his charge to make a statement in front of his friends and family.

"There's lots of people from Canberra who keep telling me how he was the one that got away," Holland said. "He's going awesome. It's his 50^th game this weekend, which is pretty special.

"He'll be excited, he'll love getting back. The in-laws will be there, so he'll be desperate for a performance."

While eager to see Lomax dominate up front, the Brumbies back three have given Holland plenty of headaches in recent days.

The trio of Corey Toole, Andy Muirhead and Tom Wright have played a crucial role in the team's success this year and Toole tore up the Hurricanes when the two teams played in round 10.

The speedster appeared to pick up an injury on Friday night, but ACT coach Stephen Larkham declared he will be available for selection for the quarter-final.

It didn't take long for Holland to identify Toole as a danger-man earlier in the season and he knows his backs will face a tough task.

"He didn't surprise us because we've been a bit of a fan ever since we started doing our analysis for the first game," Holland said. "We were pretty impressed. [Assistant coach] Cory Jane thinks he's pretty special.

"He's only a little dude and he's fast but he seems like a tough bugger as well. He's something special and the more XVs he plays, he's going to get better and better."

Toole's blistering form has seen him bolt on to the Wallabies radar and coach Eddie Jones reached out to the winger earlier in the year.

Larkham hasn't been surprised and backed the former sevens star to make the step up to the Test arena.

"It's hard to beat speed," Larkham said. "Like Tom and Andy, because they've been playing together for the whole season, there's a good combination and good confidence among the three. They seem to have an understanding of what the other player is going to do and they feed off that.

"I thought his try on the weekend was special. We've seen a number of opportunities where he's made some breaks, including against the Hurricanes last time where he made the break and dished it off to someone else. This time, I like the way he finished that try. That hunger to get over the line was something every coach wants to see in a player."

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