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Round 9: TITANS vs BULLDOGS (MAGIC 2025)

Any updates on how our q cup players went and who could come up into the team next week if we are without Jolliffe and grey
 
Gray will take the plea you’d think as he’s outside the top 30 and on F all money it’s a $3k charge and I’m pretty sure it sits with the players to pay doesn’t it??
 
I want Gray and Joliffe suspended.
They are liabilities.

Give Simpkins a crack and unfortunately either Klese or Iszac.
 
Titanic said:
I thought Simpkins looked ponderosa for Tweed, Bodsie, how about Patston? Why am I posting Des won’t budge.
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Wasn’t Tuki’s best game but he’s been consistently one of Tweeds best this year. Wouldn’t base his call up on that game alone. He’s close to NRL.

Patston is an edge and that’s it. Will get his opportunity but dont see it being in the middle.
 
Time for Patston to debut I watched him for a few seasons at Burleigh, have seen less of him at Tweed but he deserves a shot. Granted yes he is a second rower but if we're committed to starting Fifita on the bench he can't do worse than Randall and Klese have if he can do his other 20-25mins elsewhere idk

Time for Pahulu even if he has committed elsewhere under the table (if he hasn't Des is even more cooked than I thought). I'd have him start and move Mo or RCG to bench to change rotation a bit as when we go to all bench forwards we're getting rolled.

Time for Simpkins

Get Alick in as well if need be he is at least versatile and doesn't miss tackles the way the other guys do. Yes, he doesn't seem to offer much in attack at NRL level but in his games for us he has been nowhere near the liability these other bench forward/utilities have been because at least he gives 100%. He can do minutes at any of lock/centre/second row as needed and defend generally competently which is more than we can say for the players currently occupying those roles.

None of the bench forwards deserve their spot. At this point I don't care if we lose to the Dogs it's about sending a message, you play that shit you can go play in front of 317 people in Tweed Heads. I'd rather we lose by 50 to the Dogs and Des drops 6 players than we lose by 14 and it's just more of the same no accountability.

Kelly and Sami deserve to be dropped and have for a while but we're light on options. Also Fifita and Fermor should just start in the second row none of this Klese or Randall bullshit.

The entire bench has to be dropped after the past two weeks. They are not good enough. None of them get a contract renewal. Klese too unless he can convince Payne to sign with us there is no reason to keep him on the roster he can't ******* catch the ball, gives away penalties and offers very little.

I don't get what anyone is seeing in Brock Gray sure he isn't completely awful but he doesn't look to be NRL level to me either.

Joliffe looks cooked now

Mo is getting steadily worse but isn't quite cooked yet just needs better rotations maybe have him play the middle portion of the game instead or something idk rotation wise

I actually wanted to see Guy Hamilton get a shot a while back after we let Fogarty go and Sexton looked a bust although heard second hand Hamilton had attitude issues so idk and now he's not even playing for our feeder. I wanted Weaver to be the guy and he has vision at times but it seems like he isn't the guy even though he's also been far from worst on ground but again liability in defence etc it has to be Harrison or Gordon if JC isn't the guy (and i'm still convinced he's not the guy but hope he proves me wrong)

Also I am all for firing Des Hasler at this point. I've had enough we are going backwards, we have been going backwards since mid last season, our squad is a mess, he has no idea how to use the guys we do have on the roster and there is no accountability for bad performances and there is no structure to our attack even under Holbrook we had some structure at times, now it's just Brimson or Fermor do something brilliant to set it up or we just don't score.

Our attack has looked worse and worse as time goes on under Des. Our defence has looked no better other than about 3 games across this season and last.

Yes we have a few players out but so do most teams. That was embarrassing we were up 18-6 with a Cowboy in the bin and we lost 50-18. Ridiculous stuff. Second week in a row we blow a double digit lead.

I hope the owners have the courage to make the changes needed.

If Des picks and sticks again this week and we lose in magic round which will be 40k+ fans mostly cheering for the Titans due to being a QLD side then Des has to go. If the heads don't roll and he picks and sticks and we get flogged again Des's head is the one that has to roll at some point. We are only not in last due to the incompetence of other teams right now and that won't last if we keep playing like this.

Maybe a bit of hyperbole in this post but this game has largely ruined my excitement for magic round, pre season I figured we'd give the Dogs a game, maybe we might with their form last week and suspensions if we can lift but i'm not holding out hope and Penrith being terrible has ruined a bit of the marquee appeal of Panthers/Broncos but still should be a good day out as long as we at least try something different or show some heart
 
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I mean it clearly does matter who the coach is, personnel obviously matters too, but some coaches are better defensive coaches than others

I don't think anyone would argue that Shane Flanagan is making the Dragons underperform their roster given how awful their roster is or that Bellamy hasn't got the best out of the Storm roster for decades (granted yes, he's had good rosters to work with)

I never understand the praise Neil Henry gets we never had a 50% win season under his coaching either and while yes, he had some iffy rosters to work with, we did not look like a good side under him other than glimpses before Ash became a complete bust

I don't think we have had an above average coach since John Cartwright

Random thing but when I was buying on the Gold Coast a few years ago I inspected the house that John Cartwright had built when he was our coach in Currumbin Valley (not knowing that at the time, the realtor brought it up when he saw my Titans hat), it was slightly out of my price range and I ended up in Elanora but my god is that house awesome and it would be worth so much money right now if i'd had the capacity to borrow an extra few hundred k pre covid lol

I think as much as I dislike Shane Flanagan we made a mistake not trying to get him if we were ready to move on from Holbrook. Now i'm not sure what the right coaching option is but i'm not sure that Holbrook is a worse coach than Des, at least he made our attack look decent even if he struggled to pick a best 17 or fix our defence Des is too.

I'm not sure who the option is and I guess i'm fine with giving Des until mid season but if we continue going backwards it's clear whatever he is doing is not even close to working. Other than that two game period we have been horrible and getting worse since mid last season.

We definitely need to work on recruitment (since Tino we've had basically no good recruitment, we've developed some juniors and bought exclusively either busts or players who are decent like Fifita but who don't live up to their paycheck). We obviously need to not lose any more Reece Walsh or Payne Haas level Gold Coast talent (yes I know the Broncos got Haas early etc) and that means bringing Burleigh back into the fold at some stage too when their Broncos deal expires imo despite the mess it ended in last time and finding a way to get Keebra back too if we can. I'm not sure how to do that but if we can't retain Gold Coast based league talent what are we even doing as a club.

If we look at the players who are from here though that we could have got in the past 15 years - Hughes, Keary, Haas, Walsh, etc things could have been very different.

Anyway we do have some talent on the roster but we are not going to be playing finals football with a bench consisting of some combo of Randall/Klese/Joliffe/Gray/current version of Hau (I still haven't seen enough of him to know whether he's going to make it or not at NRL level, I hope he does) and with Kelly and Sami in the centres and Verrills/Randall as our hooker combination and as much as I hate to say it with JC as our halfback.

Hopefully Harrison and Stephenson and Gordon are who we think they are and Kini comes back better than ever and we can either buy or develop the other needs and get there in the next few years. If we somehow waste Brimson, Tino, Fifita, Fermor, Mo and now Kini's primes (which is still to come in his case) without winning 50% of our games in a season it would be a travesty.
 
Reality is we’ll lose more Reece Walsh’s and Payne’s to Brisbane. Unfortunately. To be fair - the Warriors lost Payne even harder than we did. We at least had a contract technicality issue, they had him training with their NRL squad and he deflected to Bris as soon as he could.

But Brisbane will continue to lose big fish to The Dolphins, Titans, Roosters and Melbourne. It’s just the nature of junior recruitment that you’ll never secure absolutely every best talent from your region.

Our ones get highlighted though because we’ve historically had absolutely nothing to show for it (junior development) ourselves. That, and the fact that Payne is a generational talent which everyone knew watching him as a 16 yr old.
 
There's a reason Broncos of all clubs come out saying the system is unjust and unfair and why Ben Iken is talking a lot about it when Dolphins are being targetted and rightfully so but there's no bigger hypocrites in the world.

We can't compete with them to a certain point but we pick the best and invest imo especially in the newer 17s and under, Our juniors are still close to the best out there still because we pick and choose, Yes they will get it wrong but we also can't pay 30+ kids like them to and to the amounts.

The whole system is going to potentially change due to what Dolphins have come in doing, While Broncos are being complete hypocrites who have been doing it themselves forever but now not having the same cash and complaining.
 
John Cartwright is such a good head coach he hasn't managed to find another NRL head coaching gig since we sacked him.

John Cartwright merely had the most talent of any previous Titans coach.
 
Sin Bin, Bunker goal posts moved again it’s all becoming a joke ruined 4 weeks of footy now it’s back to the old way if it’s missed in game it’s missed and reviewed by the match committee

Only to go back for serious offences (send offs)
 
Just read that on the Roar, TT. I'm not sure it's any more than a PR stunt. The refs and bunker will be told to be more lenient but are they saying high shots that they were prepared to stop the game for and send someone isn't a serious offence??? If you take their word for it, nothing changes. They have no credibility. Just expect more inconsistency. The game is going to pot.
 
I’ll watch the highlights. QLD Reds will get my time now because regardless of the result they at least try their guts out, are well coached and show improvement year on year.
 
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