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Important update on 1476AM'No excuses': Dragons star Holmes on his 'very poor' game
Jasper Bruce, AAP •  April 28th, 2026 2:37 pm
Valentine Holmes | Photo: AAP
A candid Valentine Holmes says there is no excuse for his "very poor" performance in the game that proved the last straw for axed St George Illawarra coach Shane Flanagan.
Paid an estimated $1.2 million per season, Dragons centre Holmes made headlines after being thoroughly outplayed by opposite man Latrell Mitchell in the round-eight loss to South Sydney.
Holmes missed 10 tackles as rival centre Mitchell scored a career-best four tries in one of the NRL's most dominant man-to-man contests in recent memory.
Third-year coach Flanagan stepped down by mutual agreement two days after the Dragons' 30-12 loss to the Rabbitohs.
Speaking publicly for the first time since, Holmes was grateful interim coach Dean Young kept faith in him for Anzac Day, when the last-placed Dragons slumped to a 12th-straight defeat.
Valentine Holmes | Photo: AAP
"There's no excuses for the way I played (against Souths)," Holmes said. "It was very poor.
"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, Holmes felt slumps in form were inevitable in 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."
Holmes did not have the same individual nightmare against the Sydney Roosters on Anzac Day, but no Dragons player acquitted himself with great distinction in the 62-16 thrashing.
The left edge was targeted throughout Saturday's game given the inclusion of undersized debutant Kade Reed and Luciano Leilua's sin-binning.
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Young's decision to switch Holmes back to his preferred left side at least gave the 30-year-old a boost in confidence.
"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," he said.
"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 is set to give the winless Dragons a chance to regroup from their latest defeat.
"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."
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