Flanagan gets his star Dragons signing with $2.5m Holmes pickup

2 years ago - Sportingbase

The St George Illawarra Dragons have finally won out on the player market, signing State of Origin star Valentine Holmes from the Cowboys. The superstar pickup will join Shane Flanagan’s team from next year.

Holmes, 29, is set to earn around $2.5 million over the next three years, through to 2027, and is in line to take up kicking responsibilities after Zac Lomax leaves at the end of the season.

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The North Queensland Cowboys have been in talks with Holmes for some weeks now about his NRL future; the Queensland club were set to pay the 29-year-old Origin representative a hair over $1,000,000 next season and there were some at the club that wanted that pay bill off the salary cap as soon as possible.

While Holmes will still earn the million, the Dragons will only pay around $800,000 of the freight. The Cowboys will chip in the rest, and still save themselves four-quarters of the seven-figure sum in the process.

Flanagan and the Dragons are just as happy after they chased a star signing for some months.

#NRL signing 🔴⚪🐉 Valentine Holmes to join @NRL_Dragons from next year on three-year, $2.5 million deal. Direct swap for Lomax role-wise, should play centre and kick goals

(via @dailytelegraph) pic.twitter.com/1oyDmfICXI

— The Sporting Base – NRL (@BaseNrl) August 13, 2024

There’s been a string of misses for Flanagan in the recruiting department since he took the helm at the Red V, with Addin Fonua-Blake, Tom Dearden, Joseph Manu, and English fullback Jack Welsby all slipping through his fingers.

The club has enjoyed rising success on the field though and remains in the hunt for 2024 NRL finals after knocking off the then ladder-leading Melbourne Storm two weeks ago. The joint venture now sits in ninth with 10 wins in 20 games and will face the Gold Coast Titans, Cronulla Sharks, and Canberra Raiders in the last three rounds.

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Holmes is the second solid signing for the rebuilding Dragons in the last month, with hooker Damien Cook heading from Souths to St George Illawarra at the end of the current NRL campaign.