Leadership Holmes in on revival

NORTH Queensland bosses have declared they will not return to the club’s dark ages and have set aside funds in the salary cap ready to lure Valentine Holmes from the NFL to spark a Cowboys revival next season.

On the eve of tonight’s Queensland derby, Cowboys football operations chief Peter Parr hit back at suggestions North Queensland was a club in decline following the retirement of champion playmaker Johnathan Thurston.

The 13th-placed Cowboys are set to miss the finals for the second consecutive year and have come under fire for their recruitment and retention after losing Kalyn Ponga, Brandon Smith and Viliame Kikau in the past three years.

Michael Morgan was tipped to lead a Cowboys finals charge this season in the post-thurston era but instead North Queensland have been also-rans, languishing in the bottom four entering tonight’s Broncos derby.

Parr has been a pivotal figure in the reconstruction of the Cowboys.

An 18-year employee, he joined the club in 2001 after North Queensland won a third wooden spoon.

It was Parr who pulled off a poaching raid on Canterbury whiz-kid Thurston, whose arrival in Townsville in 2005 transformed the Cowboys into a premiership powerhouse.

Now, one year into Thurston’s retirement, the head of football said the Cowboys would not tolerate mediocrity and challenged the playing group to finish the season strongly.

“There is time to resurrect something,” Parr said.

“If we implode over the next five weeks then it goes from a disappointing season to seriously disappointing.

“Challenging and disappointing would be the two words I would use to sum up this year, but no one is giving up here.

“Nobody at this club wants to return to the dark days and I’m confident that won’t happen.”

Parr believes Thurston’s retirement is only one factor in North Queensland’s free fall this season.

“We’ve had some challenges around injuries,” he said. “But ... we’ve been in a position to win a number of games and we haven’t been able to.

“Mentally, we haven’t had the ability to play the full 80 minutes in a number of games.”

The club remain hopeful of securing NFL aspirant Holmes next season.

The former Queensland Origin ace makes his debut for the New York Jets in a trial match tomorrow morning but if he fails to make their 53man squad, he could be back in the NRL by February next year.

The Cowboys tabled a mega fiveyear deal to Holmes before his American departure and are keeping room open under the salary cap.

“We’d be mad not to have another conversation with him,” Parr said. “Val could transform our backline.”