Titanic Cleanout on the Cards

[Titan4Life]

Titans coach Neil Henry planning NRL clean-out as club looks to rebuild
Peter Badel The Courier-Mail
August 01, 2015 9:00PM

GOLD Coast hierarchy will embark on the biggest clean-out in the club’s history as part of a cultural overhaul to reignite the Titans as a premiership force.

The Sunday Mail can reveal 14 Titans — more than half the fulltime squad — are playing for their futures at a club tired of floundering in the competition cellar.

Titans coach Neil Henry says the next six weeks is the chance for top-liners to be part of his blueprint for success — starting against Parramatta on Monday night at Cbus Super Stadium.

“We have a number of players off-contract and we’re going into the marketplace,” Henry said.

“The current group have a lot to aim for in the last six weeks.”

The Titans’ recruitment arm will spend the coming months clearing out deadwood.

As part of the shake-up, the Coast’s second-tier salary cap and under-20s system will come under review and the exorbitant, five-year deals tabled under the previous regime will be abandoned.

One frustration for Henry and his management team has been trying to plan ahead while hampered by expensive residual contracts brokered by past administrators.

Henry has shown he is not afraid to wield the axe. During his stint at the Cowboys, Henry purged 16 top-liners from his fulltime squad after North Queensland’s annus horribilis in 2010, when the club finished second last.

Titans players fighting to save their careers include hooker Beau Falloon, Kalifa Fai Fai Loa, David Hala, Kevin Gordon, Daniel Mortimer and Matt Srama. Back-rower Ben Ridge is unwanted for next season, while former Maroons forward David Taylor has permission to negotiate with rival clubs.

Second-tier players such as Christian Hazard, Davin Crampton, Jamie Dowling, Jai Ingram and Chad Redman also face perform-or-perish scenarios as the Titans look to revitalise their roster.

Henry has begun implementing cultural change, signing former Maroons prop David Shillington and Titans foundation hooker Nathan Friend for their 2016 recovery mission.

They will be joined by 30-year-old workhorse Zeb Taia, signed from Super League outfit Les Catalans, while Broncos young gun Ashley Taylor will ink a two-year deal.

The Titans have another three potential recruits on their radar, but the club’s salary-cap latitude will hinge on the number of players jettisoned over the next month.

“We have six games to go and this is an opportunity for the current roster to win some games and show us what they’ve got,” Henry said.

“The guys off-contract know who they are and the best thing they can do is play good football.

“For any club out of finals contention, it’s a test of character on a weekly basis. I need to see that over the next six weeks. I want to see the resolve from the players to get out there, fight and get some wins.

“We have some room to move in the salary cap and the funds to attract a few more players. We’re trying to build again.”

Since the Titans’ charge to the grand-final qualifier in 2010, the club has become an NRL minnow. They crashed to the wooden spoon in 2011 and have won just 42 of their past 114 games for a 36 per cent success rate.

The Titans have attracted criticism for signing veterans Friend and Shillington, but Henry says the duo will play influential roles in redefining the Coast’s culture.

“Their behaviours are what any club needs,” Henry said.

“David is a thorough professional in how he approaches his footy and ‘Friendy’ looks after his body, it’s a testament to their longevity in the game.

“We’ve lost a lot of senior guys in recent times like Luke Bailey, Ash Harrison, Mark Minichiello and Nate Myles is leaving (to join Manly), so David and Friendy will add balance to our group.

“It will take a while to turn this club around. We’ve been on a constrained budget for a few years, but we are looking at our high-performance unit and hopefully we’ll keep the players we want to keep.”


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[TitanSam]

WOAH WOAH WOAH. Keep Hala, Hazard and Crampton and I'll be sweet

[gotitans101_]

Hmm, that sounds encouraging.

[Titan4Life]

Very positive article and glad we are thinking about the future. Unfortunately, despite cleaning out the trash, we are still feeling the effects of 'Earthquake Cartwright'. Lots of undeserving players such as Zillman, Gordon, Mortimer etc on big dollars when they aren't perfoming.

Just hope this actually leads to something and isn't just all talk!!!

And I'm guessing we can add Taia and Taylor to our 2016 teams as it seems they are 100%. Haven't really seen Taia play, but I've heard he has been playing well for Catalan. And Ash Taylor is an obvious good buy but I still wouldn't mind picking up another more experienced half.

[TitanSam]

I wonder who the other 'potential 3 recruits' could be though.. Interesting

[RenegadeGC]

WOAH WOAH WOAH. Keep Hala, Hazard and Crampton and I'll be sweet

Only one that I'd even consider keeping is Crampton, yet he is unproven at NRL level. Hala too many injuries (isnt setting the world on fire in QCup), same for Hazard.

[Mexican titan]

Can someone answer this for me because I must be missing something bloody obvious. With our current roster as it stands we had signed DCE who supposedly was a million plus. Since missing him we have signed Shillo and probably Taylor and Taia which would take about half, probably a bit more of what DCE was going to get. And we lost Myles on say $400k So on face value we would still have around $900k - that's without getting rid of blokes. Yet we can't announce signings supposedly because of cap pressure.

I am more puzzled that we could announce DCE's signing when it seems we were relying on getting rid of blokes which seems a risky approach. It would be so much easier if we took the Broncos approach and just didn't worry about a salary cap.

[JunctionBlock]

I understand the need for experienced players to be here, even though we shipped experienced players off to Super League or we aren't re-signing players who are committed to the team and would have taken pay cuts to stay, however I'm with you MT, where is the rest of the money that DCE would have been signed with?

I also question the order in which we have signed players for next year. Friend wasn't being offered anything anywhere else so we could have waited before tying him up with 1st tier money. Shillington was ready to negotiate with QCup teams to come back to QLD, so we sign him with more 1st tier. Who even knew Zeb was heading back to Australia and yet we jump on that boat straight away. Wouldn't we be better off going after the "three" others first with that money rather than possibly missing out on (hopefully) better signings than players that no one else was chasing? These three signings could have been the ones waiting in the wind to see where our cap position is after some players move on.

Part of the reason we are in this salary cap dilemma is because of current coach and staff too. They were the ones that shipped Kelly and Blair off to super league whilst they still take up room in our cap as they weren't "in our plans". Hindsight shows that we could have used some depth in our half's this year rather than relying on Mortimer. They were the ones that signed Moseley and told Srama see you later when he had just signed an extra two years (admittedly it was under Carty when he signed but Henry was the one that said bye bye). The blame can't squarely fall on the previous administration. If we are so keen on having a clean out then I hope we are talking to Zillman in the same way that the Broncos are talking to Hodges regarding early retirement so the club can move forward.

Rant over.

[Titans83]

The money that was offered to DCE was reported to be around 1 mill. You would think that we have that to spend since we didn't sign him but it's just not there. Henry has been reported saying that a portion of that was 3rd party deals. No other player on our roster can get those 3rd party deals so that's why we have the cap pressure. I am guessing but I think around 300k would have been third party so really we only have 700k. If you take into account that we bought Ash Taylor a promising rookie which we probably wouldn't have done if we had gotten DCE you can take another 150k? off. So I think we have around 550k left over from the money we had for DCE.

[TITAN PETE]

I understand the need for experienced players to be here, even though we shipped experienced players off to Super League or we aren't re-signing players who are committed to the team and would have taken pay cuts to stay, however I'm with you MT, where is the rest of the money that DCE would have been signed with?

I also question the order in which we have signed players for next year. Friend wasn't being offered anything anywhere else so we could have waited before tying him up with 1st tier money. Shillington was ready to negotiate with QCup teams to come back to QLD, so we sign him with more 1st tier. Who even knew Zeb was heading back to Australia and yet we jump on that boat straight away. Wouldn't we be better off going after the "three" others first with that money rather than possibly missing out on (hopefully) better signings than players that no one else was chasing? These three signings could have been the ones waiting in the wind to see where our cap position is after some players move on.

Part of the reason we are in this salary cap dilemma is because of current coach and staff too. They were the ones that shipped Kelly and Blair off to super league whilst they still take up room in our cap as they weren't "in our plans". Hindsight shows that we could have used some depth in our half's this year rather than relying on Mortimer. They were the ones that signed Moseley and told Srama see you later when he had just signed an extra two years (admittedly it was under Carty when he signed but Henry was the one that said bye bye). The blame can't squarely fall on the previous administration. If we are so keen on having a clean out then I hope we are talking to Zillman in the same way that the Broncos are talking to Hodges regarding early retirement so the club can move forward.

Rant over.

if you call the Warriors,Storm,Cronulla & 2 SL clubs nothing I gues you are right,,,, I could name at least 6 players that we have spoken to but you wouldn't have read about any of those either...

Clubs are generally contacted by player managers when players want to test the water to find there worth & they are also the same people who contact the media to try & inflate player prices & start bidding wars but there are many negotiations that are held behind closed doors without any news being leaked because clubs will deny the rumors & offers will be withdrawn in a heart beat..

Just because you haven't read anything don't think its not happening

[Hail Sezer]

if you call the Warriors,Storm,Cronulla & 2 SL clubs nothing I gues you are right,,,, I could name at least 6 players that we have spoken to but you wouldn't have read about any of those either...

Clubs are generally contacted by player managers when players want to test the water to find there worth & they are also the same people who contact the media to try & inflate player prices & start bidding wars but there are many negotiations that are held behind closed doors without any news being leaked because clubs will deny the rumors & offers will be withdrawn in a heart beat..

Just because you haven't read anything don't think its not happening

This.

Truth be told, no one here has any idea how much we have to spend on player x and y because you're all making these judgements based purely on media reports.

Like Pete said - plenty is happening, but you're not gonna read about it.

[lonegull]

Well said Pete and HS, after the gymnast debacle I think management a playing their cards close to their chest, and agree about what friend can bring to this club put it this way he always gives 110% for each second he plays and I think as Pete has said earlier friend being around in the pre season will have a flow on effect as their will be quiet a few blokes thinking we can't let this older bloke show us up

[Titan4Life]

Maybe this 'perform or go' scenario might fire some of our players up in the last few rounds. Not holding my breath though as a lot of our players are effortless.

[JunctionBlock]

if you call the Warriors,Storm,Cronulla & 2 SL clubs nothing I gues you are right,,,, I could name at least 6 players that we have spoken to but you wouldn't have read about any of those either...

It was reported that after the Warriors signed Isaac Luke Friends services were no longer required. Storm seems like a stretch as to why they would need his services. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy he is coming here, my point was that after we signed the three people discussed we now have to wait until other players are offloaded to sign anyone else (apparently). Seems like an ass about way of going about building a team. But I'm the first to admit, I'm not the expert. Just a guy on a forum.

[Hail Sezer]

It was reported that after the Warriors signed Isaac Luke Friends services were no longer required. Storm seems like a stretch as to why they would need his services. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy he is coming here, my point was that after we signed the three people discussed we now have to wait until other players are offloaded to sign anyone else (apparently). Seems like an ass about way of going about building a team. But I'm the first to admit, I'm not the expert. Just a guy on a forum.

Mate just quietly I wouldn't question Pete's knowledge on Friendy and who did and didn't express interest in him

It's good to have such contrasting views on our management and their recruitment regime. Lights up the forum in a good way.