Jonny Lomax to retire at end of Super League season after 388 appearances for St Helens
St Helens half-back Jonny Lomax will retire at the end of the 2026 Super League season, calling time on a career that has spanned 388 appearances for his hometown club and 15 international caps across England and Great Britain.
The 35-year-old announced the decision on 25 August, with St Helens publishing an official confirmation on their club website. Lomax turns 36 before hanging up the boots for good.
His body has been telling him for a while. Lomax has undergone 19 operations across his career — 12 of them on his knees alone before he had even turned 26. He has not played since fracturing his jaw in St Helens' defeat by Warrington Wolves in June.
Despite that toll, the list of honours is long. Lomax won five Super League Grand Finals — the showpiece event that decides the league champion each autumn — along with one Challenge Cup (rugby league's historic knockout competition) and a World Club Challenge, the annual meeting of the English and Australian champions.
On the international stage, he earned 11 England caps and four for Great Britain, and was part of the England side that reached the 2017 Rugby League World Cup final against Australia.
Lomax came through St Helens' academy and made his first-team debut in March 2009, aged 18. He became club captain following the retirement of hooker James Roby — the long-serving stalwart who had led the side for years — and signed a two-year contract extension in January 2024 that ran through to the end of this season.
By the time that deal was signed, Lomax had already endured more surgical repairs than most players face in two lifetimes. He kept going regardless, a fact that St Helens chairman Eamonn McManus captured plainly: he described Lomax as "the bravest of brave in the bravest of sports."
In November 2025, as the squad gathered for pre-season, Lomax told his teammates that Matty Lees would take over the captaincy for the 2026 campaign. He remained a central figure in the side, but the armband had passed on.
St Helens sit seventh in the Super League table with three matches remaining in the regular season. Whether Lomax returns from the fractured jaw to make a final appearance before the campaign ends is not yet confirmed.
For fans, the retirement closes a chapter on one of the most resilient careers in the modern game — a player who gave nearly everything to a single club, and whose body bore the cost of every tackle, twist and sprint along the way.
