TRADING UP
Kelly’s Titans apprenticeship at an end
A CONFIDENT Brian Kelly says his three-year NRL apprenticeship has given him the belief he can match it with the game’s elite as the Titans centre looks to add defensive starch to his natural attacking flair.
After 47 games across two seasons at Manly, Kelly returned to the Gold Coast this year and emerged as a shining light in a bleak campaign, scoring eight tries in 23 appearances for the wooden spooners.
A Junior Kangaroos representative during his time with the Titans’ NYC side from 2014-16, the 23-year-old underlined his attacking potency with 10 linebreaks and a career-best average of 123m a game.
But with a tackle efficiency of just 73 per cent, Kelly has taken it upon himself to improve the defensive side of his game as he pushes for a Round 1 berth under new coach Justin Holbrook.
“Overall I’d give (last season) a seven out of 10 from the halfway point but I still definitely want to pick up my defence and keep out more tries, so working on my defence at training has been good,” the Ballina product said.
“Coming into my third year, (the goal) was just to keep on maintaining my defence and the good standards. I took a while to get out of the blocks but towards the middle of the season I started to find a comfortable spot on the left where it was a natural spot.
“This pre-season I’ve definitely done a lot more on that (defensive) side of things and been working on combinations within inside and outside. We changed halves a lot this year so hopefully during pre-season we can find out combinations and work on them.”
Kelly said Holbrook’s influence on the playing group had already been felt, allowing the 2018 Australian Prime Minister’s XIII representative to continue his coming of age.
“I definitely feel like I belong (in the NRL) now,” he said. “It’s been one of my favourite pre-seasons so far.”