{"id":619747,"date":"2026-04-20T18:59:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T18:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/619747\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T18:59:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T18:59:10","slug":"dragons-star-valentine-holmes-shocker-v-rabbitohs-latrell-mitchell-before-shane-flanagan-sacking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/619747\/","title":{"rendered":"Dragons star Valentine Holmes shocker v Rabbitohs, Latrell Mitchell before Shane Flanagan sacking"},"content":{"rendered":"

The real reason behind Valentine Holmes’ shocker in the game that sealed Shane Flanagan’s fate<\/a> can be revealed – and it has nothing to do with the chaotic state of the club.<\/p>\n

Holmes missed a career high 10 tackles in the 30-12 loss to Souths on Saturday night<\/a>, which proved the final nail in Flanagan’s proverbial coffin at the Red V.<\/p>\n

The incumbent Queensland<\/a> State of Origin<\/a> star let in several of Latrell Mitchell<\/a>‘s four tries through poor defence and copped a pasting from Dragons fans after the game, who accused him on social media of not trying his best.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Dragons boss reveals Flanno fears after sacking coach<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Flanno exit opens door for Dragons legend<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Australia’s newest sprint star demolishes field<\/a><\/p>\n

But a Dragons source has revealed to Wide World of Sports that Holmes<\/a> took a painful leg injury into the game and was unable to run at anywhere near full pace.<\/p>\n

\"Valentine<\/p>\n

Valentine Holmes runs out for the Dragons against the Rabbitohs in round seven, 2026.\u00a0NRL Images<\/p>\n

“In retrospect he shouldn’t have played but he wanted to be there for the team and try to keep Latrell quiet,” the source said.<\/p>\n

“Val thought that would be a better option than throwing a young bloke in against a player of Latrell’s class.<\/p>\n

“Unfortunately they (Souths) had a lot of ball and Latrell was in a mood.<\/p>\n

“Val had a (pain killing) injection before the game but it didn’t help.<\/p>\n

“He’s not going to make any excuses for his game – he knows he was poor – but now you know why.”<\/p>\n

Flanagan, who has a long association with Holmes, was on Sunday morning told he would be sacked morning by the Dragons board, with the official announcement of his departure made on Monday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Dragons have now lost 11 games in a row and sit winless on the bottom of the NRL ladder, a club in crisis.<\/p>\n

Watch the 2026 NRL season live and free on Nine and 9Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The real reason behind Valentine Holmes’ shocker in the game that sealed Shane Flanagan’s fate can be revealed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-619747","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619747","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=619747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}