Justin Loomans (born 22 May 1975) is an Australian former professional

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

footballer who played in the 1990s. He played for the North Queensland Cowboys in their inaugural season and later played for the South Sydney Rabbitohs. He primarily played on the or at .

Background

Born in

Rockhampton, Queensland Rockhampton is a city in the Rockhampton Region of Central Queensland, Australia. The population of Rockhampton in June 2021 was 79,967, Estimated resident population, 30 June 2018. making it the fourth-largest city in the state outside of the ...

, Loomans is of

Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

descent and attended Rockhampton State High School. He was originally a Brisbane Broncos scholarship holder, before being signed by the North Queensland Cowboys in 1994.

Playing career

In Round 4 of the

1995 ARL season The 1995 ARL premiership was the 88th season of professional rugby league football in Australia, and the first to be run by the Australian Rugby League following the hand-over of the Premiership's administration by the New South Wales Rugby Leagu ...

, at age 19, Loomans made his first-grade debut for the Cowboys in an 8–14 loss to the Canberra Raiders. He scored his first try a week later, in the Cowboys' 12–20 loss to the Brisbane Broncos. In Round 8, he played in the club's first-ever win, a 14–10 victory over the

Illawarra Steelers The Illawarra Steelers are an Australian rugby league football club based in the city of Wollongong, New South Wales. The club competed in Australia's top-level rugby league competition from 1982 until 1998. On the 13th of December 1980, the ...

. Loomans ended his first season as the Cowboys' equal top try scorer, scoring nine tries in 16 appearances. In 1996, Loomans was again the Cowboys' equal top try scorer, scoring eight tries in 21 appearances. In 1997, the Cowboys competed in the breakaway

Super League The Super League (officially known as the Betfred Super League due to sponsorship from Betfred and legally known as Super League Europe), is the top-level of the British rugby league system. At present the league consists of twelve teams, of wh ...

competition, with Loomans playing just seven games and scoring two tries. In 1998, Loomans moved to

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

, joining the South Sydney Rabbitohs. Over two seasons, he scored 12 tries in the 35 games for the struggling side including a try in Souths final match against Parramatta before the club was controversially axed from the competition. When the Rabbitohs were excluded from the

NRL The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...

at the end of the 1999 season, Loomans returned to Queensland to play in the Queensland Cup. He played for the

Easts Tigers The Brisbane Tigers are a rugby league club based at Langlands Park, in the suburb of Coorparoo in Brisbane, Australia. Since 1996, they have competed in the Queensland Cup, having competed in the Brisbane Rugby League from 1934 to 1997, where ...

and his hometown club, the

Central Comets Central Queensland Capras are a semi-professional rugby league football club primarily based in Rockhampton, Queensland and representing Central Queensland. They currently play in the Queensland Cup, the premier rugby league competition in Quee ...

, scoring 39 tries for them.

Statistics

ARL/SL/NRL

Post-playing career

Following his retirement, Loomans became a mentor and trainer for the Central Queensland NRL bid's junior development program and Operations Manager of Central Queensland Indigenous Development.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Loomans, Justin 1975 births Living people Australian rugby league players Central Queensland Capras players Eastern Suburbs Tigers players Indigenous Australian rugby league players North Queensland Cowboys players Rugby league players from Rockhampton, Queensland Rugby league wingers South Sydney Rabbitohs players