Tough start
The Titans have endured one of the worst starts to a season in years but all isn’t lost
The Gold Coast’s two national football teams are a tale of contrasts just a month into the respective AFL and NRL seasons.
In the AFL, the Suns have spent much of the first four rounds sitting in the top eight, somewhere the 13-year-old club has rarely spent time in its history, with two wins from three games.
They had a bye this past weekend but will be back in action next weekend when they face off in South Australia against GWS.
As of Sunday they sit just outside the top eight.
It remains to be seen whether new coach Damian Hardwick’s approach to the perpetual underperformers will get them all the way to the promised land of September footy.
Meanwhile, in the NRL the Titans are enduring one of the worst starts to the season in recent years.
If they lose to the Cowboys in next Sunday’s away game, it will equal their worst first month of games – when they failed to score a win from their first four matches in 2011, the year the Titans got the wooden spoon.
Like the Suns, they also have had a new coach this year – multiple premiership winner Des Hasler.
Saturday’s loss at home to the Dolphins was disappointing, particularly in light of the grit they showed early in the first half.
While prognostications over another wooden spoon season are already ramping up, it’s too early to say the season is already lost.
The Titans have been in the NRL for 17 seasons and in the past decade alone have had five coaches, not counting the four caretakers who have helmed the team following the all-too-frequent mid-season sackings.
While nobody should be happy with the state of the club’s season so far, we’re only one month into the season and there’s still plenty of time for the Titans and Hasler to turn it around.
The talent is there, there’s no shortage of goodwill from the near-14,000 people who were in the crowd on Saturday.
But long-suffering fans will want to see some improvement and get a few wins on the board.
It’s over to you Titans.