Gold Coast Titans CEO admits club is facing difficult times but says the season is far from over.
I READ with interest Travis Meyn’s article yesterday in which he was critical of the *Titans results, crowd numbers and recruitment.
Firstly, I don’t disagree with his assessment that the club is facing a difficult challenge and fans should expect better results if we want them to turn out in force. I would be deluding myself if I wasn’t prepared to admit that the team’s results have slipped recently regardless of the reasons for it.
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After a promising start in the first eight rounds during which, not coincidentally, our top halves Aidan Sezer and *Albert Kelly played together in six games and were outstanding, we now find ourselves in a position where a quick improvement is required if we are to keep the hope of a finals berth alive.
Titans CEO Graham Annesley says the club’s season is far from over, but improvement is needed. Picture: Regi Varghese Source: News Corp Australia
However, I don’t think any fair-minded fan could ignore a horrific injury toll we have been confronted with which has seen the club use five different halves combinations in the last six games — and see us with more than 40 per cent of our salary cap on the sidelines when we lost to both the *Warriors and the Storm.
In relation to our past *recruitment, it is worth noting we had three players in last night’s Origin clash.
We also had three players in this year’s City-Country *Origin clash, and Kelly would have no doubt been a fourth if not injured.
One of our latest recruits James Roberts is a potential match winner and showed real glimpses of his attacking potency against the Storm. Paul Carter has already been cited as one of the rookies of this season. And after Beau Henry became our third injured half, we have responded immediately by recruiting Daniel Mortimer who has played in two grand finals.
Yes, the attendance on Monday night was obviously a major concern, even though it would be easy to dismiss the poor turnout as a one-off glitch given circumstances beyond our control such as three consecutive home games including a Monday night during the Origin period (historically the toughest crowd-drawing stretch of every season) with key players from both teams required to stand down.
Our fans have already shown in 2014 they are prepared to turn out in good *numbers given the right circumstances. Our games against the Broncos, Rabbitohs and Warriors were in good timeslots with our team in good form, resulting in crowds of 20,524, 19,107 and 18,753.
Of course we are not happy with the past five weeks, nor would we expect our fans to be. However the season is a long way from over so I implore all our members, supporters, commercial partners and sponsors to turn out on Sunday for the Dragons clash to give the boys the support they need to start a midseason charge towards the finals.