Code Sports<\/a> described Holmes, who is contracted at the Dragons until the end of next season, as the club\u2019s \u201c$1 million dollar problem\u201d.<\/p>\nThe vision of Johnston waltzing past Holmes down the left wing to score an easy try was particularly damning. <\/p>\n
Fox League commentator Dan Ginnane said Holmes was \u201cin no-man\u2019s land\u201d in defence on that play.<\/p>\n
\u201cVal Holmes standing on the wing, absolutely no idea what he\u2019s doing,\u201d Luke Keary said on Fox League.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlex Johnston\u2019s the winger. Val Holmes just standing on the wing, lets Alex Johnston just walk past. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a leader. If I\u2019m Shane Flanagan, I\u2019m absolutely filthy at halftime. One of your senior players, Queensland State of Origin player and Australian player, just standing on the wing. <\/p>\n
Mal Meninga added: \u201cYou\u2019ve got to look up and we aware. There\u2019s just no awareness of where the game\u2019s at.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leadership void at the Dragons<\/p>\n
With Clint Gutherson out injured and co-captain Damien Cook initially named on the bench, there was confusion over who exactly would captain the Dragons against the Roosters. <\/p>\n
Coach Shane Flanagan explained Luciano Leilua and Kyle Flanagan would share the on-field leadership duties, with halfback Flanagan to make the captain\u2019s challenges. <\/p>\n
Ultimately, Cook started the game as captain when Jacob Liddle was ruled out with injury, but the coach\u2019s pre-match comments pointed to a void of leadership in the team.<\/p>\n
Fox League\u2019s Yvonne Sampson said: \u201cShane Flanagan told us before today\u2019s game, \u2018I usually have experienced players that I can rely on\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just feels like he doesn\u2019t have that, especially with his forward pack at the moment. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe asked the question about the captaincy, he was a little bit avoidant. The plan was to start Damien Cook off the bench, then Jacob Liddle picked up a hamstring injury before kick-off, and that elevated Cooky into the starting side.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is obviously a void of leadership and trust there that he can really rely on someone,\u201d Fox League\u2019s Yvonne Sampson said.<\/p>\n
Luke Keary added: \u201cAs soon as that team list came in, you go, \u2018OK, who\u2019s going to be captain here?\u2019 You look down the page and you go, \u2018Well, there\u2019s not really a name that stands out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s tossed up Kyle as the captain\u2019s challenge. There\u2019s a lot going on there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mal Meninga said: \u201cWe criticised Val and I think it\u2019s warranted. Why wasn\u2019t he captain if Damien wasn\u2019t starting? <\/p>\n
The Dragons play the Sydney Roosters next weekend in the traditional ANZAC Day clash, and an eighth straight loss would put Flanagan\u2019s position as coach under even more intense scrutiny. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs a staff member and a good friend of Shane\u2019s, it\u2019s a tough period for us as a club. Players down on confidence, really important week this week,\u201d Michael Ennis said on Fox League.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St George Illawarra\u2019s season continues to go from bad to worse with Jaydn Su\u2019A suspended, a State of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,277557,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-617046","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-ncaeditorialkayoprogram","13":"tag-nrl","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617046","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=617046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}