Gold Coast Titans
The Gold Coast Titans are a professional rugby league football club, based on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. The club competes in the National Rugby League premiership, Australia's elite rugby league competition. Since 2008, the Titans have played their home games at Robina Stadium in Robina. The Titans joined the NRL in 2007.
The Gold Coast Titans were the first national-level franchise from the Gold Coast region since the previous franchise, the Gold Coast-Tweed Giants / Gold Coast Seagulls / Gold Coast Chargers, which existed from 1988 to 1998.
History
Formation
The beginnings of a Gold Coast team's bid to return to the National Rugby League began when the Australian Rugby League decided to remove the financially successful Gold Coast Chargers from the National Rugby League at the end of the 1998 Season. The ARL wanted to have a second major team based in Brisbane and believed the best way to achieve this was by removing the Gold Coast team from the competition. The attempt to launch a second Brisbane team failed and in 1999, Michael Searle, former Gold Coast Chargers player and Managing Director of International Sports Australia, formed a Gold Coast Bid Team. The team included former Chargers boss Paul Broughton and was labelled as "The Gold Coast Consortium" by the media. The board was constantly active in lobbying the NRL to both expand the competition and consider the Gold Coast's bid for inclusion. It was successful in organising pre-season NRL trial matches to be hosted on the Gold Coast and with average attendances of over 16,000, and peak attendances topping 20,000, the popularity of rugby league on the Coast was clear.In August 2004, the NRL rejected Michael Searle's bid for re-adding a Gold Coast team. However, later, during an episode of Nine Network's The NRL Footy Show, the "Gold Coast Consortium" announced their team name and jersey to the public from the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre. Initially the team was to be named the Gold Coast Dolphins, with the team colours to be white, jade and orange. While the Dolphins moniker was popular among many, the heavyweight Brisbane Queensland Cup side the Redcliffe Dolphins saw it as a threat for any prospect of entering the NRL they had, and as a result threatened severe legal action if the Gold Coast used the Dolphins name. Midway through that year the National Rugby League announced that after viewing submissions from the Gold Coast Dolphins, the Central Coast Bears and the Wellington Orcas, there would not be a 16th team included in the 2006 NRL competition. Reasons given to the Gold Coast was the National Rugby Leagues concern over the quality and capacity of their home ground, Carrara Stadium, which is an oval and only seats 16,000.
Although their bid was knocked back, the consortium continued to push heavily in 2005 for a Gold Coast team, changing the entry year to 2007. The Gold Coast received a massive boost when the Queensland Government announced they would spend A$100 million on a new, 25,000-seat rectangular stadium in Robina for the Gold Coast should they be accepted into the 2007 competition. The stadium would not be completed until early 2008 yet the promise of a new first-class facility was enough for the NRL to accept the Gold Coasts bid and on 27 May 2005, NRL CEO David Gallop announced that the Gold Coast franchise would be the 16th team in the 2007 NRL season.
In the time since the Gold Coast was admitted, the Titans completed a vigorous recruitment drive, they announced the signing of Sydney Roosters assistant coach John Cartwright as the Titans first head-coach and successfully signed contracts with established players such as Dally M Medal winner Preston Campbell, Queensland & Australian representative Scott Prince, New South Wales & Australian representative Luke Bailey and enticing former league player Mat Rogers back from rugby union.
2007–2008: Laying the foundations
In February 2007, the Titans played their historic first game in a trial against the previous season's Minor-Premiers and Grand Finalists Melbourne Storm, previously the newest club in the League. They were beaten in the club's first hit-out but over the following weeks, Cartwright fielded his full-strength team in two other pre-season trials, winning 22–10 over the Parramatta Eels for the club's first victory. The following week in the team first played in front of their home fans on the Gold Coast, they ran out 28–6 winners over the Penrith Panthers. Although merely trial matches, the signs were positive for the Titans' debut season to come.The Titans played their first official match in round 1 of the 2007 NRL season against the St. George Illawarra Dragons. Their first game was moved from their home ground, Carrara Stadium, to Lang Park in Brisbane due to the huge demand of fans eager to see the new Gold Coast outfit in action, and on 18 March 2007, in front of over 42,000 people they made their debut. Gold Coast performed admirably but after falling 14 points behind in the second half 20–6 they could not manage a full comeback losing a tight match 20–18. Former Queensland State of Origin winger Chris Walker, who had been released by Melbourne Storm due to off-field troubles in 2006, started his rugby league comeback scoring two tries and two conversions for a 14-point haul for the Titans.
The close loss to St. George Illawarra would not last long in the memories of Titans fans as a week later the Gold Coast franchise recorded their first official victory in another tight match, winning 18–16 against the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks at home. The start of the season saw the Titans only manage four wins in the first ten rounds but a mid-season five-week-long winning streak of four wins and a bye saw the Titans sitting in the top four at the conclusion of round 15. The streak was ended in a poor 22–6 loss against the Warriors at home, then they slumped to a five-match losing streak which included a golden point loss to the Brisbane Broncos in Round 17 and a 56–10 loss at the hands of the Canberra Raiders in Round 18. The Gold Coast would not register another win until round 21, but by then they had already slipped to 11th position and needed to obtain maximum points from the final four rounds to confirm a spot in the finals in their maiden season. The side only managed one win from the final four matches, however, missing out on the finals. In the final round, a 50–6 thrashing at the hands of ended the Titans' debut season on somewhat of a sour note, with the young Gold Coast franchise finishing the season in 12th position with 10 wins, 14 losses and a bye for 22 competition points.
Despite having an outdated home ground as they waited for their new stadium to be completed, the Titans had the second-highest average attendance of all NRL clubs for 2007.
At the end of 2007 Luke Bailey and Anthony Laffranchi were named co-winners of the club's inaugural Paul Broughton Medal for best and fairest player of the season.
In their debut season, the Gold Coast club had turned over $16 million.
The 2008 NRL season was the Titans' second in the National Rugby League. A major boost for the Titans was the signing of past Queensland representative Ashley Harrison from the Sydney Roosters.
The Titans played their first official match at their new Stadium, Robina Stadium, against the North Queensland Cowboys with the final score being 36–18. Rookie Jordan Atkins became only the second person in the history of Australian rugby league to score four tries on debut, alongside Canterbury's Tony Nash in 1942. The sellout 26,974-strong crowd assisted the Titans in firmly establishing that they were a force to be reckoned with in 2008.
The club went on to hit top place on the NRL ladder for the first time after round 6. They managed to maintain top spot on the ladder all the way until round 11, when a loss to Wests Tigers saw them forfeit top spot to the Sydney Roosters, who led in points differential. At the conclusion of Round 14, the Titans were equal first on points, fourth on points differential, employing a perfect home record for inspiration. Despite facing a tough home stretch, the Titans placed admirably in their pursuit of an inaugural finals campaign.
One of the Titans' strongest points in 2008 was the form of halfback Scott Prince, who earned selection for State of Origin. However, early in Game 3, his arm was broken, putting him on the sideline for the season. Subsequently, the Titans lost four straight games.
They finished their season at 13th on the NRL ladder.
This year their turnover increased to $22 million and the club posted a $1.5 million profit.
2009–2010: First finals appearance
The Titans secured four new signings for the 2009 season in Sam Tagataese, Matthew White, Jackson Nicolau and Raiders speedster William Zillman.Similar to the Titans previous seasons, they find themselves on top of the competition ladder after six rounds sitting on ten premiership points alongside their rivals the Brisbane Broncos. Early victories against the Canterbury Bulldogs and the Melbourne Storm away from home without skipper Scott Prince, silenced many of their critics who believed they could not win away from the holiday strip or without their veteran halfback.
Many of the Titans NYC side made their debut and turned into regular first-graders, such as Esi Tonga, David Mead and Kevin Gordon. Kayne Lawton, Bodene Thompson and Selasi Berdie also made their NRL debut.
The club's most successful season so far saw them finish in third position, which was in 2009. They were two points behind the competition front-runners St. George Illawarra Dragons and the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs. In the 2009 finals series, they lost their qualifying final 40–32 against the Brisbane Broncos, then lost the semi-final 27–2 against the Parramatta Eels.
The Titans signed five new players for the 2010 season in Joe Tomane, Marshall Chalk, Riley Brown, Clinton Toopi, Greg Bird and Steve Michaels
The Titans lost a number of players for the 2010 season, including Ben Jeffery, Brenton Bowen, Chris Walker, Daniel Conn, Brett Delaney and Siosaia Vave.
For the second year in succession the Titans qualified for the finals, finishing 4th and thereby earning a home qualifying final against the fifth-placed Warriors. The Titans' 28–16 win, coupled with losses for two other top four teams, meant that the Titans earned the week off and a right to host a preliminary final at the larger Lang Park, which turned out to be its 100th ever premiership match. The Titans lost to the resurgent Sydney Roosters, 32–6, ending their season one week short of the Grand Final. After 2010 the Titans finished up 4th overall in the 2010 NRL season, with Mat Rogers retiring at the conclusion of the season.