Garth’s reality check
FROM the moment Mal Meninga was appointed the Titans’ culture and performance boss in November, Garth Brennan feared he was a dead man walking at the Gold Coast.
The Titans officially pulled the trigger on Brennan yesterday, following a scathing internal review from the playing group. But the writing was on the wall for some time for the sacked Titans coach.
Meninga never coveted the head-coaching role at the Titans. He was happy in his role as Kangaroos coach and wanted to merely provide assistance by overseeing the club’s cultural improvement. But the minute Big Mal walked into Parkwood, paranoia began to set in for Brennan.
Eager to ease his internal alarm bells, Brennan called a meeting with Titans co-owners Darryl Kelly and Rebecca Frizelle. He was already contracted until the end of 2019, plus a 12month option for 2020, which would be activated if the Titans made the finals this year.
Brennan asked the bosses if Meninga was going to take his job. Kelly and Frizelle assured him that was not the case. To ease his concerns, they suggested a sweetener – waiving the finals clause and giving Brennan an immediate extension until the end of 2020.
Brennan accepted the terms over summer, but from that moment, the 47-year-old was always going to be at the mercy of performance in the high-octane, cutthroat world of NRL head coaching.
After 28 losses from his 40 games in charge, Brennan’s reign at the Titans is over.
He heads for the Parkwood exits with the Titans dead last and in danger of claiming their second wooden spoon in eight years.
Brennan’s axing has come just days after the Titans were thrashed 24-2 by his former employers Penrith, where he won several lower-grade titles that trumpeted him as an NRL coach-in-waiting.
Meninga will today table his much-anticipated review to the Titans board after completing six weeks of interviews with a range of stakeholders, including the playing group.
It was expected to be the holistic masterplan that would lead to the termination of Brennan, but the board moved more decisively after some disturbing insights from a number of leading Titans players.
Meninga has probed several facets of the Titans’ operations, chiefly the function of the football department, and for the second time in two years, the Gold Coast has been buffeted by a player backlash.
In 2017, Neil Henry was sacked after facing a dressingroom mutiny and now Brennan has paid the price, coming under fire from some elements of the playing group, who expressed concerns about his methods.
Brennan did not return calls yesterday, but recently said he was pragmatic about the cutthroat career of an NRL coach.
“At the end of the day, my neck is on the chopping board,” he said.