A horrific week off the field for the Gold Coast Titans and Jarryd Hayne has ended with a loss as the Canterbury Bulldogs dominated the first half before clinging onto a 12-point win at CBus Super Stadium.
With Neil Henry and Jarryd Hayne’s falling out reaching a bitter end during the week, the Titans had new coaches in position in assistant coaches Craig Hodges and Terry Matterson.
Hayne in particular, was poor for the Titans, making some errors, doing nothing with the ball and ended with just 90 metres from 14 runs.
It didn’t help them though. They started the game on a competitive level, but that quickly fell by the wayside as the Bulldogs racked up 20 first half points without raising a sweat.
The opening try, scored in the 14th minute was a long range one set up by Michael Lichaa. He sent Moses Mbye through the line, who then linked back up with Lichaa and an offload sent Hopoate over under the sticks.
The Bulldogs marched straight back up the field, with a poor set following a penalty before David Klemmer crashed through some soft defence to score next to the posts.
Marcelo Montoya made it three tries in nine minutes for the Bulldogs. A penalty allowed them to go back up the field before Brenko Lee went from dummy half and offloaded for Montoya to score in the corner.
Even Moses Mbye going off with a concussion couldn’t slow down the visitors, with the Titans struggling to get into the game. The next try didn’t come until four minutes before halftime, but it was another long range effort as the Morris twins burnt the defence on the outside, an inside ball sending Hopoate away.
At halftime, the score was 14-0, but the Titans came out of the sheds with a renewed focus.
They were immediately moving the ball, running hard and getting out of their own end with ease, completing a perfect start to the second half with Tyrone Roberts scoring in the corner off a kick.
Errors continued to hurt the Titans, but they would be next to score, closing the gap again as Anthony Don scored in the other corner on the back of some ad-lib play.
The Titans went into destruction mode though, and the Bulldogs were able to snuff out their run with a penalty goal, then a try to Josh Morris as he scored off an intercept to a pass from Ashley Taylor, which landed right on his chest.
A consolation try to Phillip Sami made the scoreline slightly more respectable, but the Titans were thoroughly beaten again and are now looking forward to the end of the season.
Gold Coast Titans 14
Cantebury Bulldogs 26
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