Going after Lozza adds to identity confusion

THE push to make Laurie Daley the face of the Gold Coast Titans sums up a club still searching for its identity.

Who are the Titans and what do they stand for? At their best you have to love their grit but their true identity is something of an enigma.

The Queensland club never coached by a Queenslander, their sky-blue colours those of Queensland’s dreaded southof-the-border rivals.

One of their biggest name players, Greg Bird, was loathed north of the border and current spearhead Jarryd Hayne, another New South Welshman, even gets jeered by his own fans.

From the moment Blues legend Bob McCarthy coached the first incarnation of the Gold Coast teams in 1988, there has been a feeling they have fallen between two stools – not Queensland to the core enough to bleed Maroon but certainly not south of the border sympathisers.

It’s nobody’s fault. If you are building a club on the Coast, why would you want to be so Queensland you alienate every fan south of Tweed Heads?

But the risk is you become a bit like that cup of tea with too much milk that has no distinctive flavour.

The most obvious way forward for the Titans is to “Maroonify” the club.

Get a Queensland chief executive like experienced Shane Richardson back from Sydney, get your recruiting men to throw a net over the greatest rugby league nursery of all time up the road at Logan, and find a local coach passionate about winning over the locals.

There is no doubting Daley’s decency as a man or his worth as a coach.

But getting Daley or fellow New South Welshman Michael Maguire to coach the Titans next year requires the floating fan to get all passionate about yet another southern coach drifting through the region on their way to nowhere in particular.