Players reveal truth behind King’s reign
COACH Neil Henry is in a room with his players at Titans headquarters.
It is the first time he has addressed his men since the blood-letting the night before when media reports screamed “the King was dead”.
They are all there. Henry, Hayne, Taylor, Peats ...
There are no balls or boots, just the traditional Tuesday session where the team gets together each week to analyse their next National Rugby League opponent.
On the outside, this week is no different for the players. King Henry is focused on the Thursday night clash with Parramatta in Sydney. There is no heart-felt plea for the group to rally around him or help save his job.
But privately some players are sensing change.
“I think they have to sort it as quick as they can,” one told the Bulletin yesterday.
“I like Neil as a coach but I just don’t know (with) how far it’s gone now and the stuff that has come out, I don’t know how you could resurrect it. I think it would be really hard.”
Asked if it feels like it is only a matter of time before the coach is sacked, another player offers: “Yeah well it does, it does a little bit. Just with all the media coverage and I guess speculation and everything about it. A lot of things are starting to come out. It’s going to be hard for him to unite the playing group fully again.”
Others spoke to say the team is undivided, unaffected by the ugly HenryHayne drama played out in recent days.
Henry refuted there was a problem between him and Hayne at a media conference yesterday.
“There’s no feud between us, we’re sitting there doing the team review in the front row … that is rubbish,” Henry told reporters.
“It’s a beat-up in the media all this … there’s no feud. There’s not. You can ask any players about it and they’ll say the same thing.”
However, when asked if Hayne was a team man, he replied: “That’s a difficult one, he’s part of a team and he works hard.”
Following the media conference Henry joined his staff for a casual sit-down at the nearby cafe at the Parkwood complex.
Nothing to see here, or so it seems.
Henry’s communication and people management skills have come under fire, from his ineffective handling of contract negotiations to players learning of the coach’s feedback via others rather than in person.
It is feared too many issues have come to light for Henry to be able to fully unite the squad under his leadership and direction, which only a year ago was openly lauded in the Titans march to the finals.
The general mood around the inner sanctum has changed for the worse, but more so resulting from their horrible performances on the park in recent weeks than this saga.
Players were well aware Hayne and Henry were not the type of pair to share a beer but did not sense problems as deep as has been reported.
As for Hayne, some say the club knew what they were getting themselves into when they signed the two-time Dally M winner: A man with abundant talent and profile but one who simply does not fit into the battler identity that underpinned the side’s run to the 2016 finals.
That gritty culture and style – one that Henry relishes – was challenged the moment the Hayne Plane accepted his $1.2 million-aseason contract and landed on the Coast.
“Jarryd is not that sort of player,” one source put it simply.
With that identity broken down, the Titans have stuttered to 14th place and are now in jeopardy of crashing to another wooden spoon.
For all the fronts being put up, it seems a foregone conclusion that the Titans feel it’s necessarily to pull the trigger on a new era dawned by a new coach.
IT’S GOING TO BE HARD FOR HIM TO UNITE THE PLAYING GROUP FULLY AGAIN AN ANONYMOUS TITANS PLAYER ON COACH NEIL HENRY