GOING FAST
Gold Coast in race to woo Maroons Origin flyer Coates
THE Gold Coast Titans have moved to correct one of the biggest recruitment misses of their recent history by entering the race for off-contract Maroons winger Xavier Coates.
The 19-year-old flyer is now one of the NRL’s fastest players but slipped under the Titans’ radar as a late bloomer at Currumbin Eagles.
Brisbane Broncos scouts were the first to identify Coates’s potential as a 16-yearold and poached the prospect to Red Hill in 2017.
His meteoric rise, through the Tweed Seagulls national championship-winning under-18s and an international debut for Papua New Guinea, to a 100 per cent tryscoring strike rate for the Maroons in the 2020 Origin series – all by the age of 19 – has made the Gold Coast product rugby league’s most wanted man.
The Titans missed the boat first time around but player agent Nash Dawson confirmed the club was among NRL suitors hoping to woo the second fastest man in rugby league.
With the prospect of retirement looming for stalwart Anthony Don, Coates’s signature would deliver the Titans a fitting successor to a club legend and complete an outside backs trio unrivalled for speed.
Coates’s family still lives on the Coast, where his younger brother attends high school.
Melbourne Storm legend Matt Geyer, Coates’s former high school and club football coach, said the opportunity to play in front of a home crowd was a powerful drawcard in the Titans’ favour.
“That opportunity can be a tough one to knock back,” Geyer said.
“He’s a Gold Coast boy and he was disappointed the Titans’ junior development system showed no interest when he was young.
“He was always our best and fairest player at Currumbin but he just had no recognition at the next level, so at 16 he talked about not playing (rugby league).
“I wish they would have come on board when he was 16 but that chance to play in front of mates and family in a home crowd is some enticement.”
Coates’s blistering 36.9km/ h speed was the joint-fastest speed in the NRL until it was eclipsed by 0.3km/h by Josh Addo-Carr in the competition’s penultimate round.
Unlike Addo-Carr, who built his game around his speed, Coates’s 194cm, 100kg frame allows the young Bronco to challenge defenders with his aerial ability and physicality as well as that potent pace.
“What’s enticing clubs to go to him is, in such a short period of time, he’s gone from being a 16-year-old who couldn’t make a local rep team to playing Origin, one of the best wingers in the game, at 19,” Geyer said.
“People look and think, imagine what he’ll be at 24.
“You can imagine if AddoCarr was 20 kilos heavier and four inches taller and could leap tall buildings in a single bound, that’s what people are imagining with Xavier.”
Coates returned to training with the Broncos this week and will not make any decision on his future until he has at least tasted life under new coach Kevin Walters.