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Oh, come on David. As head honcho, you were perfectly at liberty to ride into the Gold Coast and ‘save’ the teetering Titans.
But Mr Smith, you didn’t have to treat us all like chumps.
Your highly publicised rescue mission on the Gold Coast on Tuesday was oh-so-obvious. It didn’t need the spin you poured on so lavishly. All we needed, as the game’s followers, was a little assurance from the NRL that the severely troubled club wasn’t going to be hung out to dry.
Instead, we got the NRL CEO waxing lyrical about “a real exciting day for the club” and that NRL ownership would guarantee a long-term future for the club in the national competition. Yesterday’s announcement was always going to happen. It was a given.
For starters, we are less than two weeks from the start of the 2015 premiership and even though one participating club is virtually broke, sponsor-less, and more than likely to be without a quarter of its best players for the opening round, the applecart could not be upset.
February is way too late to kick the basket-case Titans out and wheel in a replacement. Secondly, nobody would have been happy faced with a 15-team comp which would toss up those infernal and messy byes.
But most importantly – and here is the crux – the NRL’s billion dollar TV deal would have been thrown into jeopardy if Channel Nine and Fox didn’t have 16 teams to televise in those hundreds of revenue-raising hours.
I believe the TV agreement would have been in major strife, maybe even null and void, if one of the clubs – for whatever reason or circumstance – went missing at the 11th hour.
The NRL was always going to step in and take on the role of administrator. I just feel we could have done without the totally glib ‘we’re doing it for you, the fans’ spiel. My personal view is that we have had more than enough of the Gold Coast Titans, Chargers, Giants, The Whatevers.
There have been a number of failed attempts to get a team established or entrenched on the so-called glitter strip but all have ended in tears, embarrassment and financial hardship.
When the Titans field an NRL team this year, one would think that current circumstances (senior players on drug charges, lack of backers, recent poor crowds etc) would suggest they are heading for some heavy losses.
Of course, there will be a degree of public sympathy falling their way because of the turmoil we have been reading about over the past week or so. If I am reading things correctly, it will be a hefty achievement if they win even a handful of games.
But in the end, I don’t feel we need a team that everyone plays to boost their for and against numbers. The NRL comp needs the Titans to be highly competitive on a weekly basis, not a club going around to literally make up the numbers for TV.
Everyone appreciates the Gold Coast region has a vast and thriving junior league but it seems that very few of these talented footballers are sticking with the game after reaching their high teens.
I wouldn’t be upset if the Gold Coast Titans were disbanded once and for all. NRL expansion talks are said to be imminent and there will be several powerful franchises eager to fill their spot.
Ask yourself if you’d really miss the Titans if they were rubbed out right now, or at season’s end. Or better still, tell us right here on The Roar.
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