Valentine Holmes has openly admitted there is no excuse for his "very poor" performance in the match that proved to be the final straw for sacked St George Illawarra Dragons coach Shane Flanagan. The Dragons centre, reportedly earning around $1 million per season, made headlines after being comprehensively outplayed by opposite number Latrell Mitchell in the Round 8 loss to South Sydney.
Holmes missed 10 tackles as Mitchell scored a career-best four tries in what has been described as one of the most dominant individual contests in recent NRL history. The 30-12 defeat prompted Flanagan to step down by mutual agreement just two days later, ending his three-year tenure as head coach.
Speaking publicly for the first time since the coaching change, Holmes expressed gratitude to interim coach Dean Young for retaining his spot in the side for the Anzac Day clash against the Sydney Roosters, where the last-placed Dragons suffered their 12th consecutive defeat. "There's no excuses for the way I played (against Souths). It was very poor," Holmes said. "Obviously I'm very grateful I got the opportunity to redeem myself as much as I could this week."
A veteran of 225 NRL games, the 30-year-old acknowledged that slumps in form are inevitable over a long career. "I'm not perfect," he said. "I never play perfect footy every week as much as I'd love to. I've had some very bad performances in my past. I've been playing, fortunately enough, for over 10 years."
While Holmes avoided a repeat of his individual nightmare against the Roosters, the Dragons were thrashed 62-16, with no player covering themselves in glory. The left edge was consistently targeted, particularly after undersized debutant Kade Reed came into the side and Luciano Leilua was sin-binned. Young's decision to shift Holmes back to his preferred left side at least provided a confidence boost. "After the changing of coaches, 'Youngy' gave me a call and he said, 'I want to move you back to your side, just focus on what you do best, what you bring to the team' and he gave me that chance, put that confidence back into me," Holmes explained. "I felt like I trained well that week and went all right (against the Roosters). I can't say I'm proud of that performance for myself because we lost like that. They still scored on our side, they scored on both sides. We were pretty poor all over the park."
The round-nine bye offers the winless Dragons an opportunity to regroup. "It's just very disappointing because people don't see how hard we train and what we do at training and stuff like that," Holmes said. "We can score some points when we get down there with good ball, then we just don't get down there enough, make too many errors, ill-discipline, high tackles and all that stuff."
