This is why the Dragons last year moved Lomax to left centre. The problem is he didn’t want to play there. He also fancies the idea of being captain, a position rarely filled by wingers.

Now that the Dragons have cancelled the final two years of his $800,000-a-year contract, Lomax will be free to play for another club in 2025. He has had meetings with Parramatta, who may start him as a centre, but my guess is he will eventually find himself on the wing and he will probably be paid less.

As valuable as wingers are, centre also has its own specific demands, specifically being a position that requires more footballing nous. They are sometimes called “wingers with footwork” but centres must also have good hands and the ability to hold the ball until the precise time is right to release it.

The different demands at centre and wing were demonstrated by the Knights last week when centre Dane Gagai withdrew early from Sunday’s clash to be replaced by second-rower Dylan Lucas. Ten years ago, it would have been routine to replace Gagai, a Queensland Origin centre, with a winger but nowadays, an edge forward is often seen as a better fit because they have similar passing skills and are better in defence.

Long gone are the days when skinny kids who kicked goals were picked on the wing to hide defensive frailties. But it is still a truism that one reason wingers score so many tries is that they are marked by other wingers. (To be fair, though, wing is an increasingly hard position to defend due to the frequency of overlaps created by clever attacking moves.)

Many of the game’s past superstars, such as Greg Inglis and Billy Slater, started their first-grade careers on the wing but would be less likely to do so now, given the particular demands of the position.

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But recent media surveys of the game’s elite players show centre is still a more prestigious position. A list of the game’s top 50 players compiled by experts from the Herald and Channel Nine included four centres compared to three wingers, while a similar list of the 100 top-paid players in the Daily Telegraph had 11 centres compared to two wingers, according to its salary estimates.

Lomax has allowed himself to be caught in a time warp of the game’s own making whereby centres are still more valued than finishers, but his talents are more suited to the wing, particularly with the way the game is evolving. However, he is only 24 and by the time his career is over the once ridiculed winger may well be earning more than the glamorous centre.

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