Zac Lomax has delivered the Super Rugby Pacific moment he has been chasing since his code switch, scoring a pivotal try as the Western Force erased a 19-point deficit to beat the Crusaders 31-26 at HBF Park on Saturday.
The result — the Force's third win of the 2026 campaign against six losses — keeps their finals hopes flickering, and hands the eight-time champions their first defeat of the round.
For Lomax, the former NRL star making his first start in Super Rugby Pacific after a 20-minute cameo the previous week, the try in the 54th minute was a long time coming. When he was asked to sum up the night, he barely knew where to begin.
"It's been a while since I scored a try, seven or eight months now," Lomax said. "Just to start a game of footy really and get 59 minutes out now, I'm super pumped. And to get the win, that's more special. You can see on the boys' faces, that win means so much for us."
The match looked anything but a Force win in its early stages. The Crusaders, ruthless and clinical, had raced to a 19-0 lead by the 22nd minute, and HBF Park's crowd of 6,659 had every reason to fear a blowout.
What followed instead was one of the most improbable fightbacks of the season. The Force steadied, fed off scraps, and turned the Crusaders' territorial dominance into defensive frustration. Lomax's try in the 54th minute levelled the contest and rewired the momentum of the night.
He was off the field by the 59th minute — his cameo in Perth now a genuine statement of intent for Wallabies selectors — but his team-mates did not buckle. In the 70th minute, the Force edged ahead by five points, and the closing quarter of an hour became a classic test of nerve.
The Crusaders thought they had struck again in the 75th minute, only for the TMO to pull the try back for an earlier knock-on. From there, the home side needed only to survive. They got the moment they needed inside the final three minutes, when Wallabies flanker Carlo Tizzano forced a crucial penalty at the breakdown — the kind of heads-up work that can define playoff pushes.
For head coach Simon Cron, the scoreline only tells part of the story. The 19-0 start against one of the most storied franchises in the competition could have ended the Force's season there and then. Instead, the comeback is the kind of result that rebuilds a dressing room.
For Lomax, there is now a simpler question. With the Waratahs' Joseph Suaalii already locking down one Wallabies back-three position and Zac Lomax climbing the depth chart, Australian rugby suddenly has the kind of selection headache it has not enjoyed in years ahead of the July Tests. Lomax's statement is that he has more than earned the chance to make his case.
The Force travel next, with their finals hopes depending on weekly consistency of a kind they have rarely mustered. But on the evidence of their comeback against the Crusaders, they now have a genuine backline game-breaker — and, in Lomax, a player who has already proved he can settle an ending.
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*Originally published on [Rugby News](https://rugbynews.online/article/zac-lomax-try-western-force-stun-crusaders-super-rugby-pacific). Visit for full coverage.*
