I'd love to see the Gold Coast win the Grand Final. They've lacked the depth in previous seasons - if Prince or Campbell go down, they lost no matter what - but this season is a bit differentt.
You've got a young backline dripping with talent. You've got a very capable fullback in Zillman, which frees up Campbell and means he can get more involved, which can only be a good thing. And your forward pack isn't full of big names, but they are all very capable individually and are very well coached.
I see three weaknesses:
1 - You don't have a capable replacement at halfback if Prince is injured. Best bet is probably 6. Rogers and 7. Campbell, but neither are great organisers and Rogers isn't playing anywhere near as well as he did last year.
2 - Friend doesn't offer a lot in attack. I rate him as one of the better hookers, and his defence is superb, but he doesn't have a kicking game and while he is nippy enough to make quite a few metres out of dummy half runs, he doesn't let his teammates know and always finds himself isolated and without support, which snuffs the try.
3 - Your bench sucks hard. It's a good thing you can get plenty of minutes out of your starting backrow, because the bench options are all awful.
In your favour though, Prince is the preeminent halfback in the NRL - and thats coming from a Cowboys fan. I think Thurston is a better all-round player. I think Thurston is tougher (less time out with injury) and more versatile because he can play both 5/8 and halfback equally well, and drifts between the two during a game. But Prince is the better specialist halfback.
And Cartwright is a brilliant coach. The Titans always looks so well-drilled and so rehearsed, but can still play off-the-cuff-footy really well.
I don't know if the Titans can make it all the way to a premiership - only a few of your players have played in the finals and that was years ago. Finals inexperience may come back to bite you. Ditto the grand final being played in Sydney.
