Cowboys' Head of Football opens up on Holmes' departure

North Queensland Cowboys Head of Football Michael Luck has opened up about the departure of Queensland State of Origin centre Valentine Holmes as he prepares to play his last few games for the club.

Holmes will move from Townsville to New South Wales after signing a three-year deal with the St George Illawarra Dragons to reunite with Shane Flanagan, who he won a premiership with at the Cronulla Sharks in 2016.

Luck said the 29-year-old was looking for some surety beyond this season, which the Cowboys “weren’t in a position to provide”.

“It’s how things go sometimes,” he said on SENQ Breakfast.

“It’s hard, the salary cap is a talent equalization mechanism, it was put in for a reason and I guess you get to a position where you can’t keep everyone all the time.

“You’d love to have a team full of internationals if you could afford them all like the Broncos did 20 years ago but it just doesn’t happen now.

“It was a tough decision to make, when you start having discussions about what would it mean if you did go, what could we do, we can start locking up some of our junior players a little bit earlier than we might’ve had on our radar.

“It all happened pretty quickly, very amicably and Val gets himself an opportunity down in Sydney, which we weren’t in a position to provide him with at this stage.

“He’s happy, we’ve got to go find some replacements in our own stock who can fill that spot and who can grow into a genuine NRL centre but we’re blessed that we’ve got a couple of good young guys.”

Holmes signed with the Cowboys after a stint in the NFL with the New York Jets, signing a six-year deal in 2020 and has played 94 games, scoring 38 tries along the way for North Queensland.

But his Cowboys career isn’t done yet with the team sitting in sixth spot with just two games left and even having the chance to climb to as high as fifth spot to extend Holmes’ career with North Queensland.

Luck said destiny was in their own hands as they start their run into the finals with a clash against an undermanned Melbourne Storm side at home tomorrow night.

The Cowboys then take on the Bulldogs in Sydney to finish the regular season.