Cronulla Sharks skipper Wade Graham has called out former teammate Valentine Holmes for handling his exit from the team to pursue his NFL career "the wrong way".
Holmes quit the Sharks at the end of the 2018 season after being offered offered him the richest deal in the club's history, and is set to face his old teammates for the first time this week, as a member of the North Queensland Cowboys.
While the Sharks were supportive of their teammate chasing his dream, it was the timing of his decision that left them with a sour taste.
Then-Sharks captain Paul Gallen questioned whether Holmes should ever be allowed back to the NRL, and while Graham didn't echo those sentiments, he laid the blame at the foot of Holmes' management.
"I thought Val was let down by his management with the way it happened," he told The Daily Telegraph.
"No one would've begrudged him a thing if he wanted to go and do what he did. But the way it all happened, there was a lot of fallout because he left us in a hole.
"If his management and himself had been upfront there would've been no dramas.
"They took it to the death. It was just handled the wrong way. If they could go back in time and change the way they handled it I'm sure they would handle it differently.
"At the end of the day it is what it is. Life goes on, it happens all the time across rugby league."
In his first season back in the NRL, the former Origin flyer has already displayed his immense talents in the first three rounds of the year, instrumental in the Cowboys' 2-1 start.
Graham conceded that the Sharks had forfeited any chance of luring Holmes back to Cronulla once they signed star halfback Shaun Johnson.
However, while it is good to have Holmes back in the NRL, Graham says he wishes his ex-teammate would have stuck at his NFL dream a little longer.
"You can't share a dressing room with someone for so long and not be excited by what he did over there," Graham said.
"He went across the world to challenge himself in the NFL.
"I wish he would've stuck at it longer. I know it's a hard, cutthroat business over there. I don't know much about the inner-workings and Val would've naturally had a better gauge with how he was tracking.
"He can't have been too far behind any of their best athletes. He couldn't have been.
"If he had given it a bit of time and maybe got an opportunity somewhere who knows what could've happened."
* This article was originally published here
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