By Wayne Heming

The one thing Valentine Holmes has always been great at is scoring tries.

It’s not a bad asset to have when you are a professional rugby league player.

Holmes, who put his budding rugby league career on hold in 2019 to have a crack at breaking into the lucrative NFL,  has made a habit of scoring tries on the biggest stage for both Queensland and Australia.

Cronulla signed Holmes, who was born and raised in Townsville, as a 17-year-old in 2012.

The following year he scored 17 tries from just 10 games of Jersey Flegg for the Sharks.

Barring injury, Holmes will almost certainly join the NRL’s elite 100-try club next season which he will start with North Queensland on 92 tries.

Fog #188, Holmes’s reliability and uncanny knack for sniffing out a try or two has earned him a wing spot ahead of outstanding Brisbane Broncos prospect Selwyn Cobbo for Saturday’s Pacific Championship final against New Zealand at a packed FMG Stadium in Hamilton.

Despite having a strong New Zealand heritage, his mother is from the Cook Islands and his father is a New Zealander, Holmes pledged allegiance to Australia in September 2014, a few days after he was selected in both the Junior Kangaroos and the Kiwis train-on squad for New Zealand’s Four Nations campaign.

Test tries have been quickly mounting up for the 28-year-old centre/winger, who is also the Kangaroo’s number one goal kicker.

Holmes was at it again in last week’s dress rehearsal against the Kiwis scoring in just the eighth minute showing off his superb athleticism to grab a bouncing ball and in the same motion, grounding It centimetres inside the deadball line.

That took his try tally for Australia to 20 from 20 games.

Another try on Saturday would see him join his Kangaroo coach and league immortal, FOG #4 Mal Meninga, on 21 tries, although it took Meninga 25 more games to post that tally.

Former Queensland and Australian captain and Broncos great and FOG #104, Darren Lockyer, holds the record for the most tries for Australia with 35, but he pulled on the green and gold a record 59 times during his magnificent career.

Holmes has also been a try-scoring whiz for Queensland in the Origin arena crossing 13 times in 16 games for the Maroons since his debut in 2017, another remarkable strike rate.

Despite winning last week’s clash 38-16, Meninga has warned his player will need to improve in a lot of areas against a much more committed and determined New Zealand this time around.

Meninga has returned to his number one prop pairing of Payne Haas and Tino Fa’asuamaleaui at the expense of Thomas Flegler who scored two tries on debut last week and workaholic Jake Trbojevic,

The only other change approved by Meninga is the return of Penrith back-rower Lain Martin who has forced North Queensland’s Origin player of the series, Rueben Cotter, to the bench.

On the other side, New Zealand coach Michael Maguire has given his team a chance to redeem themselves for last week’s disappointing loss by sticking with the same line-up.

Maguire has been under considerable pressure to switch dynamic ball-runner Joey Manu to fullback to add some thrust to the Kiwi’s attack but he has so far resisted the temptation to tinker with his backline.

The game will be decided up front like all big contests and the Kiwis can be expected to turn up the aggression and take on the Kangaroo pack up the middle after being dominated in Melbourne just seven days ago.

 Waikato’s FMG Stadium doesn’t hold great memories for the Kangaroos who were ambushed 28-22 at the ground by Tonga in a World Cup clash in 2017.

Adam Gee, who did an outstanding job with the whistle in the third Origin and again last week in Melbourne again has control and if he continues his style of recent weeks the clash should flow and be very entertaining.

Teams for the final at FMG Stadium Hamilton on Saturday

Referee: Adam Gee

Touch Judge: Dave Munro

Tough Judge: Chris Sutton

Senior Review Official: Ashley Klein

Kick-Off: 2 pm