From 2016 hero to 2024 villain: Val's mission to send former club packing

Cowboys centre Val Holmes will forever hold a place in Sharks history as a member of the 2016 side that ended the club's 50-year wait for a premiership.

Just 21 at the time, Holmes came up with 19 tries for the season as he and fellow Cowboy Chad Townsend helped Cronulla to a memorable grand final win over Melbourne.

Fond memories for the flashy centre but come Friday night at Allianz Stadium, Holmes is out to shatter the Sharks' dreams of a second premiership.

While the Sharks have won 11 of the past 13 games between the two sides, it's the Cowboys who have the edge in finals matches, winning three of the past four end-of-season clashes.

“The Cowboys and Sharks always seem to play each other [in the finals] and it’s usually a big game," Holmes said after the win over the Knights.

“This one is an elimination one as well and they'll be up for it. They had a hard game against Storm in Melbourne, so they'll be up for it again.

"It's a short turnaround for both of us, we have a few little niggles but hopefully the boys can get on top of the soreness and we go down ready to go and put on good performance.”

The last time the two sides met in the finals in 2022, it was the boot of Holmes that made the difference, kicking a two-point field goal in extra-time to progress to a preliminary final where they bowed out to the Eels.

This week's game against his former club also holds extra meaning for Holmes as he nears the end of his time in Townsville.

In his fifth and final season at the Cowboys before heading south to reunite with Shane Flanagan at the Dragons, Holmes is laser focused on continuing the charge towards the club's first grand final berth since 2017.

“I'm pretty good with just focusing on where my feet are at, I'm not the type of person to look too much into the future because you never really know what's going to happen tomorrow,” Holmes told NRL.com about his mindset going into Friday’s final.

“I'm just very grateful I still get to play and we're playing finals footy.

“There's a few boys in our last season here at the club, so we all want to finish on a high.

“It's not something we really talk about but we all individually know it, we want to go further than we did in 2022 and we certainly have the team to do it.

“We were pretty close back then, we were five minutes away from playing in the big dance.

“I'm sure if you asked a few of the lads that played in that game, it would burn but, you move on from that, you learn from it and we've got a lot of guys that have played in those big games, so that helps as well.

“I think we're a perfect group with experience and then the young exciting backs and some middles coming through, with Griff [Griffin Neame], our back rowers Heilum [Luki] and Miah [Jeremiah Nanai], they’re just hard to handle.

“We're all playing to our strengths which is good. We don't have one edge that we always go to, we have two strike edges, so it's hard to defend.

“This is what you play for, you play for these games, so we'll get our head right, get our bodies right and play for another 80 against the Sharks.”