Why Lions should tag emerging Cat and the legend he should try to model himself on

Kane Cornes is adamant Brisbane must tag Geelong’s Max Holmes in Saturday’s Preliminary Final at the MCG.

The 22-year-old was dominant in the Cats’ Qualifying Final win over Port Adelaide with 28 disposals, eight marks, five inside 50s, seven rebound 50s and four clearances and Cornes thinks that the Lions should do everything in their power to stop him from having a similar influence on Saturday.

He spoke about Holmes’ emergence with Brad Johnson on SEN Sportsday, with the former Western Bulldogs great a huge fan of his ability to pick up metres gained with his ball carrying and long kicking.

If Holmes is tagged by Lions coach Chris Fagan, Johnson thinks that he could learn from former Adelaide superstar Andrew McLeod, who had a similar athletic profile to the Cat and fought his way through serious opposition attention to win two Norm Smith Medals in the late 1990s.

Johnson: “With Max Holmes, we all understand that he averages 559 metres a game which is significant.

“His best result this year was 768 metres, which is a little bit lower than I thought.”

Cornes: “Can I hold you to this? They need to put serious work into Max Holmes.

“I'm not sure any team ever has put a heap of work into him. I’m talking in his face, don’t let him stand alone, block his run.

“Jarrod Berry is the one, he doesn't have the leg speed of Holmes, but often that doesn’t matter.

“He's strong enough for him at stoppage, he’ll be all over him. They’ve just got to put so much time into him.”

Johnson: “If I was Max Holmes, I'd go back and watch Andrew McLeod’s final series in 1997 and 1998.

“Seriously, because definitely the opposition was trying to put as much as they could into Andrew McLeod, and he was unstoppable because of positioning and that's what set him up to be able to create that run from behind with the explosiveness that he's got.

“Max Holmes could learn from someone like what an Andrew McLeod has done.”

Cornes: “He was the master, McLeod would set up just off the back of stoppage … he could go either way and lose his opponent, he’d receive off the stoppage and then lights out, you can’t catch the guy.

“I think that's an excellent point for Max. Try and get some VHS tapes or some DVDs of Andrew McLeod and fire up a DVD player.”

Saturday’s clash between Geelong and Brisbane at the MCG begins at 5:15 pm (AEST).