Titans v Warriors

[Big Marn]

After watching the Titans get pummeled again, i had a feeling of empathy for the despair of their supporters.

What are the similarities and differences between our 2 clubs?

Every other club has won a premiership except us and Titans (previously Gold Coast Giants and Gold Coast Seagulls)

We have a fair idea what causes our issues:
Mainly poor management at the top, inability to attract top players/coaches which results in poor recruitment, too many journeyman, merc type players, other clubs poaching our best young talent, questionable culture over the years, travel factor.

What causes the Titans to fail year after year? Is it the same above factors (not travel obviously) or is there something else going on which is unique to the Titans?
Are they set up to succeed or are they set up to fail? Do they have financial issues or are they self sustaining? Not needing the NRL to bail them out from time to time like the Storm?
They seem to be able to recruit their share of top players but is there no nursery of talent? Is big brother Brisbane attracting the best talent?

Any thoughts?

 

[Campion]

I think performance-wise Titans are not comparable to us -- in the sense that they are WAY WORSE! But, this is an interesting thread (and I'd still be interested on what similarities/differences between the 2 clubs). You'd think GC is a nice place to live, and commutable from Brisbane, so it should be an attractive location -- yet they seem to end up hiring those on-the-out at their old clubs (Cartwright). And they've turned promising players into duds (Peachey). And good players that do sign end up pulling out (Cherry-Evans). Do they have juniors? Good facilities?

 

[Beavers Headgear]

A lot of it there comes down to management, and also the fact that Gold Coast has been a sporting graveyard across many codes for 30 years

They started off with Michael Searle running the joint and he was an absolute snake that turned a lot of people and businesses away from supporting the club and put them on the back foot straight away so they have no firm foothold in the community. They also made a huge mistake building their stadium in Robina rather than a more accessible location with other attractive options around to draw the punters in

The other big glaring mistake lately has been their recruitment and retention, they have paid massive overs for guys that haven’t produced and are in a huge hole with an unbalanced underperforming squad

Facilities wise they are about as good as you will find but the front office has let them down big time

 

[SpaceMonkey]

I think they are fairly different situations apart from the shonky front office management situation.
A problem particular to the Gold Coast is the “everyone is from somewhere else” factor, that has hindered them really gaining a following. That’s never really been an issue for the Warriors who have had a strong brand and identity from day one.
On the other side we have a problem attracting players from outside NZ, while the Gold Coast have it fairly easy in that respect being quite an attractive destination for many.
I think the Cowboys are the club that is really comparable to us- pretty similar success level (both inconsistent clubs with 2 GF appearances though they won one), both in isolated locations and with a strong reliance on junior talent. The difference between the two I guess is that we haven’t had a Thurston.

 

[Big Marn]

The difference between the two I guess is that we haven’t had a Thurston.

We had a Jones AND an Ali. That should have been enough to get us over the line dont you think?

 

[SpaceMonkey]

We had a Jones AND an Ali. That should have been enough to get us over the line dont you think?

Jones was great but not quite JT. We made a GF in the short time we had Ali. Had he been around in 2003 we might’ve gone one better.

Plus in Stacey’s defence he was around for the first period of the club which was pretty tumultuous in terms of super league and ownership changes.

 

[Blair]

Incidentally, just the one finals match between the two clubs and they did us comprehensively.

2010, it ended our season.