Throughout 2025, and more with every passing week, there have been rumblings around the footy world about Bailey Smith’s place in the game’s elite.
Is the star Geelong recruit a top-10 player in the AFL? Is he better than that? Is the Brownlow Medal all but his?
Such is the way all the Cats’ achievements this season have been linked to Smith’s exceptional, prolific form, that you might have thought losing him to a last-minute hamstring niggle would be disastrous for Geelong. Especially against a Gold Coast side with a potent midfield of their own, with equally hot form to the Cats’ and a burning desire to secure their first ever premiership points at GMHBA Stadium.
What we learned instead on Saturday afternoon is that Smith is not only not the best player in the AFL, he’s not even the best midfielder in his own team.
It’s high time we started talking about Max Holmes with the same hushed tones devoted to his more easily eye-catching partner in crime.
In a tight, torrid tussle in the Geelong drizzle, with both sides’ best brought back to earth by the weather gods, two factors held the Cats at arm’s length of the Suns all day, until the visitors at last cracked late in the third quarter to give up two quick goals that proved their backbreaker.
One was the Cats’ uncanny ability to create goals out of half-chances, making a banquet out of the crumbs the conditions afforded them; no one more than Tyson Stengle, whose four goals from four shots were priceless given how tough shooting for the big sticks was for everyone else.
And the other, obviously, was Holmes in midfield; needed more than ever in Smith’s absence, his dominance was such that his Brownlow favourite teammate was scarcely missed.
Holmes’ figures alone are eye-watering enough: 40 disposals for the first time in his career, a staggering 861 metres gained on an afternoon where territory gains were invaluable. 10 clearances and 19 contested possessions as an inside bull, both game-highs and enough to edge out noted beasts Tom Atkins and Matt Rowell. And seven inside 50s and six score involvements as an outside ball-carrier driving the Cats deep time and again, both also match-highs to prove equal to canny distributors Gryan Miers and Shaun Mannagh.
Any one of those individual stats would have made for an outstanding day at the office; to do it all, and in the process lose none of his effectiveness or the quality of his disposal amid the rain and the biting chill at GMHBA Stadium, makes this one of the great midfield performances not just of this year, but in recent history.
A pair of long-range behinds were the only blemish it’s possible to find with his performance.
The Cats’ victory, one that pushes them back into the top four, was certainly not a one-man job.
Tom Atkins was in his element in conditions that suited his ferocity perfectly, with only Holmes winning more of the hard ball; Gryan Miers’ ball use going inside 50 was a treat on a day were kicking cleanly was an enormously difficult task; Tom Stewart had his best game of the season, and looked as impenetrable behind the ball as back in his heyday as the best defender in the game – even if the Suns played right into his and Geelong’s hands by bombing aimlessly down his throat to the point of driving Damien Hardwick to breaking point.
Oisin Mullin and Mark O’Connor did tremendous tagging jobs on Noah Anderson and Matt Rowell respectively, particularly the former. Jack Henry blanketed Ben King, and was there time and again to deny the Suns’ marking options inside 50. And Stengle, of course, kicked nearly a third of the day’s goals off his own boot.
But no one can hold a candle to Holmes. And it’s about time the footy world started to give him the credit he’s due, as not just a star, but one shining as bright as any in the AFL.
No one talks about him: he appeared in few if any mid-season All-Australian teams, most of which would have had Smith front and centre; he’s not the Geelong player most opposition fans would fear getting off the chain. He doesn’t snap goals from impossible angles like Stengle, or burst through stoppages with raw power like Patrick Dangerfield, or do both at the same time like Jeremy Cameron.
The concept of him being the best player in footy wouldn’t even trigger debate like it has for Smith over the past few weeks, because the question would never be asked to begin with.
It might be a stretch, to be sure, to put him on that high a pedestal: but at the very least, it’s worth noting that he has attributes that not even the true cream of the crop can match.
He’s faster than Marcus Bontempelli; he’s stronger through tackles than Nick Daicos; he hits the scoreboard more than Lachie Neale; he’s a better user than Christian Petracca and certainly Smith.
He’s not one to draw attention to himself with a cheeky comment post-match; he has a healthy 16,600 Instagram followers. So much of what he does receives a skerrick of the attention it would if it was a certified superstar doing exactly the same thing.
And the most glaring thing of all? He is the living, breathing, starring embodiment of why Geelong, more than 18 years after first surging to the top of football’s pyramid, remain as good as any club in the business.
Max Holmes is chased by Matt Rowell. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
For all the talk about the Cats’ uncanny knack of poaching stars from rival clubs – Smith just the latest in a long list that includes Cameron, Dangerfield and Stengle – it’s not quite as sexy to commend their remarkable ability to turn anyone into an A-grader, be they a cross-sports convert like Mark Blicavs, a local footy jobber like Stewart or Atkins, or Holmes, a pick 20 in the 2020 national draft, the year COVID killed off junior footy in Victoria and no one really had a clue who was hot and who was not.
As much as the footy world bemoan the rise of athletes being drafted over pure footballers, with aerobic capacity valued more than skill, it’s inescapable that that line of thinking has fuelled Geelong’s status as perennial powerhouses, with Holmes a shining example.
An outstanding athlete with remarkable running power and an U18 national 400m hurdles title under his belt, Holmes has been moulded into just about the perfect modern footballer: he’s now an excellent user both in skill and decision-making, and an ideal blend of inside and outside midfielder, all without compromising his natural gift to run, and run, and run some more.
Whether that’s enough to make him the number one player in the game, or at least worthy of being talked about in those terms, is a discussion point that first needs to be had before it can be refuted.
But on the basis of not just his supremacy against the Suns, but his remarkable start to 2025 as a whole, he’s certainly worthy of a whole lot more praise than is currently coming his way.
