Former Cat and current Geelong ruck coach Josh Jenkins has responded to Patrick Dangerfield’s praise of young teammate Max Holmes.
Holmes was the unlucky Cat to miss out on the 2022 premiership after injuring his hamstring late in September but clearly did enough to win the respect of his star teammate before the unfortunate blow.
With Dangerfield stating Holmes has “Chris-Judd-like traits” and that he “could be the best player in the competition” one day, Jenkins has also given his view of the 20-year-old.
After playing with Holmes in his final season as a player in 2021, Jenkins says the coaching staff rated the speedster from the start before he became a “pivotal” contributor in his second campaign.
“My last season on the playing list, I wasn’t playing, and I was sitting back, and you have a look at the selection of the team,” Jenkins told SEN The Run Home.
“When you’re a bit older you look at it differently and Max was one I thought, ‘They keep playing this young fella, he’s probably not doing enough to keep his spot in this highly functioning team’, but they kept picking him.
“Sometimes you know, coaches aren’t picking teams to spite themselves, they’re picking teams because they want to win so they could clearly see something about the young man.
“This year, of course, the 18 games (in 2022), he was pivotal in many of those.”
While Jenkins conceded that Dangerfield’s “best in the competition” take was an “enormous statement”, he did back the midfielder to say that Holmes well and truly has Judd-like athletic traits that he described as “rare”.
“Best in the competition is an enormous statement to make,” Jenkins said.
“Pat’s a free-speaking type, it was from an excerpt from the book The Greatest Team of All, which is a story of Geelong’s premiership season.
“Patrick said, ‘There are Chris Judd-like traits’, I can echo that, I never saw Chris Judd up close, I played against him many times, he (Holmes) certainly has a rare blend of athleticism with speed and power, even the way he can kick the ball 55 metres without much momentum at all.
“He’s just one of those naturally powerful endurance athletes and a rare blend, normally when you’ve got power, you don’t have endurance … but he’s got both.”
After things began to click for Holmes in his second season at the level, Jenkins is excited to see where the wingman takes his game from here.
“It’ll be great to see him blossom and the other element for him is just seeing a young person, it almost clicks for them,” Jenkins said.
“You can almost see the moment where they think, ‘Oh, I belong here, I can actually push these guys around … these guys I looked up to, I can push them around because I’m a powerful kid’.
“So, he’s one to watch for sure.”
Holmes averaged 15.6 disposals, 3.8 marks and 2.3 tackles from his 18 games in 2022.