"Heading towards that": Why the Titans are 'excited' for the future

It’s been a tough year for The Titans, who are currently 16th on the ladder and find themselves two wins adrift from both the 15th-placed Eels and the last-placed Dragons.

But despite their current placing amongst the other 16 sides, Titans GM of Football Scott Sattler believes the club has plenty of potential to reach great heights.

With an average age of 25.25 and the first season that Josh Hannay was in charge, there was little expectation around Gold Coast, with most expecting a bottom-four finish.

Through his first 16 games in charge of the club, that prediction has held true, only securing four wins to date, with their biggest being their last-minute victory against the ladder-leading Panthers.

Whilst the 2003 Premiership winner admits they haven’t been happy with their showing this season, he does note that the club is going in the right direction with young guns like 19-year-old Cooper Bai and 21-year-old Arama Hau breaking into the first grade side on a more consistent basis.

And having been a part of a young side that went from the bottom to winning the title in two years, Sattler believes the Titans are heading towards a proven model of success.

“From the outside, it's hard to get excited about,” Sattler said on SENQ Breakfast.  

“But internally, we're not happy with where we are, but we're happy with where we're heading.

“It's hard to explain to the people, especially that have been involved in the club and supported the club for a number of years, and there hasn't been a lot of long-term success, so it is hard to roll out the same line.

“But what we do know that internally, we've got this really good group of young players that we've been able to retain a large quantity of them and still trying to do that as well.

“I've been in this situation myself where the Penrith Panthers were last (in 2001), and we had a group of really good young players coming through and then 2002 we came (fourth) last.

“Then we had a group of young players and finally had 30, 35 games under their belt, and then in 2003 we went through and won the minor premiership and the premiership.

“So, it's very easy to turn things around (if) one, you've got really good coaching (and) two, you're able to retain a lot of your really good core blue chip kids that are ready to play first grade or already playing first grade and make sure you've got that sprinkle of experience that's been exposed to elite rugby league, which is State of Origin and played over 100, 150 games.

“We're starting to get that model, and we're heading towards that model. So internally, we know we're heading that way, and we're excited about it.”

The Titans are hosting the Sea Eagles at Cbus Super Stadium this Sunday from 2pm AEST.

SEN League will have live coverage of the match across our radio network and on the SEN app from 12pm with NRL Crunch Time.