Golden Point: Paul Gallen’s role in Maroons securing Val Holmes, bad blood banished from
Channel: Flash video
Date: 11/07/2017

VALENTINE Holmes usually runs round in sky blue earning a crust for Cronulla.

Turns out Paul Gallen, that scourge of the Sunshine State, played a deft hand in keeping him in maroon.

Holmes last ran onto Suncorp Stadium in 2013 in an under 18s Origin curtain raiser for Queensland, but a year later was almost lured across the ditch and into black and white by Stephen Kearney.

This week in Golden Point, the history behind the Munster-Holmes rivalry, the punted skipper back in his club’s good books and an 18-year-old Bunny tipping the scales at 150 kegs.

A reasonable eligibility stink ensued in late 2014 when the Junior Kangaroos named him for a train on squad one day, and the next New Zealand did the same with their own Four Nations travelling party.

Holmes’ phone lit up like Shane Warne was on shore leave, and two years of to-ing and fro-ing as a result of his Maori father’s heritage came to a head
I wasn’t coming off the best year actually in 2014, I wasn’t happy with my form so it was all a bit surprising to be talking rep footy,” Holmes recalls of his debut NRL season, when Cronulla slumped to a wretched wooden spoon.

“At the end of the year I was named in the under 20s Junior Kangaroos and the next day the Kiwis named me too.

“So there was a push from both sides and Stephen Kearney rang me. He said he was interested and he could see me playing for the Kiwis in a few years.


“But I was raised in Townsville and played my junior footy in Townsville.

“It wasn’t an easy decision at all, so I rang Gal and he said ‘just follow your heart and do whatever you think is right, what feels right.’

“‘People will try and make you go to New Zealand or Australia but you’ve got to go with what your heart says’.”