Gilbert: Captains must right Titans ship
Tim Gilbert | August 2 2013, 02:23pm
COMETH the hour, cometh the man -- it may be a cliche but the players of the Gold Coast Titans need to live it this weekend.
It is getting desperate. One more loss here against the Tigers and it is curtains for 2013.
The harsh reality is if the team don't make the finals, this season will be looked on as a failure or, at the very least, one that got away.
When post-mortem reports are written, no one really cares if there were injuries or whether the team struggled in the Origin period.
It will be that you either had a good year or a bad one.
Coach John Cartwright must look at the table position of his team now and think "how did we get here".
The first half of the season was so full of promise.
Albert Kelly had turned his life around and, along with Aidan Sezer, was steering the side beautifully.
The Titans were beating some of the Broadway acts of the competition. Co-captains Nate Myles and Greg Bird were heralded as great success stories.
Many in the game were looking at Carty and saying all the hard work he'd done over the past seven years had paid off and this was the Titans team to really give it a shake.
It is said that winners have parties and losers have meetings.
One of the big yarns over the past couple of weeks has been a so-called emergency meeting with Cartwright and the boss. But this season is not lost. Their backs are to the wall but this footy side need to push off and burst again over the last few rounds.
Bird must grab each game by the scruff of the neck. He is one of the best players in the competition but he needs someone on his shoulder when he breaks the line.
Myles will make ground and work harder than most players, but he also needs to step up another level in the club's hour of need.
Dave Taylor has had a poor year but he can change that by playing every game until the end of the season like he did against the Cowboys at Skilled Park. You will remember the Sunday afternoon game: he wasn't expected to play, he had a leg injury and limped for most of the match. But he was at his wrecking- ball best, his team notched a good win and he took away the Channel 9 man-of-the-match award.
I have said it before and I will say it again: he is the most awesome mix of size and agility -- one in a million -- and he can go a long way to restoring his reputation in the game with a big few weeks.
It is also a time for a guy like Ryan James to unleash his true potential. He is a big body who is smart and has plenty of ability.
From a team's point of view, whoever is in the 17 has to take pride in the statistics.
Most importantly is the missed tackle column. Any team that has had continued success has really hurt when their line was broken.
This needs to be in the psychology of the Titans for the rest of the season. The desperation on the ladder needs to be replicated in the middle.
Each player has to want to be the one who stops a certain try or pulls off an inspirational tackle.
The Titans this week need to stand up and play for their teammates. They have to want to have success for their coach and most of all play for themselves.
Winning is momentum and it is infectious. Who knows -- victory over the Tigers could kick-start the Titans into a good run of form and a charge towards the finals.
Give them strength!
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