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\n Val Holmes swapped his Queensland Maroons No.4 jersey with Washington Commanders star Frankie Luvu.
\n \u00a9Grant Trouville\/NRL Photos
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Val Holmes is set to invite NFL star Frankie Luvu to the Dragons season opening match in Las Vegas after revealing how the Washington Commanders linebacker had reached out to him about a jersey swap.<\/p>\n
Holmes, who played and trained alongside Luvu at the New York Jets during his 2019 NFL stint, said the American Samoa-born star was a huge State of Origin fan and had asked for his No.4 Queensland jersey from this year\u2019s series.<\/p>\n
In return, Luvu sent Holmes his No.4 Commanders jersey and the former Kangaroos star, who will play for Cook Islands at next year\u2019s World Cup, now plans to invite him to St George Illawarra\u2019s February 28 match against the Bulldogs at Allegiant Stadium.<\/p>\n
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\n Val Holmes swapped his Queensland Maroons No.4 jersey with Washington Commanders star Frankie Luvu.
\n \u00a9Grant Trouville\/NRL Photos
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\u201cI was at the Jets with him when I was there in 2019 and he actually has been watching State of Origin for a long time,\u201d Holmes said of Luvu.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wears the same number as me and he wanted an Origin jersey of mine. He was pretty excited to get that and so was I with his jersey, which he sent me with a nice message on the back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI might hit him up and tell him to come across [to Vegas for the game].\u201d<\/p>\n
After undergoing surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff that ended his season in Round 19, Holmes was a member of Karmichael Hunt\u2019s coaching staff as Cook Islands qualified for RLWC26 by defeating South Africa on November 9.<\/p>\n
However, he is now back in training with the Dragons and will be fit for the Round 1 match against the Bulldogs at Allegiant Stadium, which is part of a triple header along with the Cowboys-Knights clash and the Hull KR-Leeds Super League fixture.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is exciting. I have watched all two years of the teams going and it looks pretty fun, just to be playing in a stadium like that, in Vegas, with a lot of eyes on you. All the talk is about the four teams over there,\u201d Holmes said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are pretty excited, but it doesn\u2019t really mean for anything if you don\u2019t get the win.<\/p>\n
“You come back, and you get 14 days off so we want to put an emphasis on trying to start well and there is no better team to play against than the Bulldogs so it will be a good challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n 599″, “>809”, “>959″]”
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NRL stars keen to build on Vegas success<\/p>\n
After helping the Sharks end their premiership drought in 2016, Holmes decided to test himself in the NFL and moved to the US in 2019 to pursue his ambition.<\/p>\n
The then 24-year-old fullback or winger was picked up by the New York Jets as a member of their training squad and played four pre-season matches as a running back.<\/p>\n
While he returned to the NRL in 2020, Holmes said he enjoyed the experience of playing in front of NFL crowds and was hoping the Dragons could put on a show for fans at Allegiant Stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe play in front of some decent crowds here, but sport is the No.1 thing in America,\u201d he said. \u201cObviously, they are the best in whatever they do, whether it\u2019s baseball, football, hockey \u2026 \u00a0they love it, it\u2019s a passion for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fans get amongst it, they entertain the fans and make them feel like they are at a show as well as at a sporting event. It is probably something we can take in as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Val Holmes is set to invite NFL star Frankie Luvu to the Dragons season opening match in Las…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-335652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}