The Titans were kept scoreless against the Bulldogs, and coach Des Hasler is making no excuses for his team’s nightmare performance.
The Gold Coast were hammered 32-0 at the Belmore Sports Ground, failing to make a dent in Cameron Ciraldo’s side’s defence.
During the post-match press conference, Fox League’s Lara Pitt aimed a question at Kieran Foran, asking if their display could be put down to teething issues under a new coach.
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Before the five-eighth had a chance to speak, Hasler interjected and said “I’ll answer that one”.
“I think that’s making excuses, it really is,” Hasler explained.
“We’ve got to really take hold of this now… we understand that it’s game, and we have to go after it to get the results.
“We are the only ones who can fix it that up.”
Hasler arrived at the Titans ahead of the 2024 season, having been signed to replace Justin Holbrook who was axed midway through their last campaign.
But now the Titans have a points differential of 56 and have only recorded four points across 160 minutes of football.
However, Hasler was confident his team can turn their fortunes around and pointed to their defensive performance in the first half.
“I thought we were a little bit, again today, the first half today I thought was admirable what we did as far as a defensive points of view,” Hasler said.
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“We held them to 12-nil and we had one off a charge down, so we sort of go into halftime with a little bit of confidence given there might have been a few points in the second half with the breeze.
“But it didn’t turn out that way, our attack, our end of set in particular it put so much pressure on our defence.”
But overall, his assessment was that the Titans couldn’t do the simple things right.
They completed at only 73 per cent, had 41 per cent of territory and missed 32 tackles to go with 12 errors.
Hasler was asked if the return of David Fifita and Jayden Campbell would make a difference, and he didn’t mince his words.
“It will definitely provide more options, there were fundamentals we just didn’t apply today,” Hasler said.
“You can have 25,000 players back, but if you aren’t getting the fundamentals right it becomes tough.
“We’ve got a bit of work to do there.”
Source Agencies
