- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
There’s little use in being optimistic about Gold Coast Titans; they have failed to meet their expectations yet again.
Give me my low human ribbon forthwith; I’m laying the slipper into the Titans for the second time inside a week. But what is a man to do when the juiciest fruit remains suspended so tantalisingly low?
I identified Sunday’s game against the Bulldogs as a luminous opportunity for the Titans to produce their own version of a footy page-turner.
I crystal-balled a rousing performance, manufactured from a galvanised inner sanctum; a response to the heat from the haters would be the first step in their redemption of 2012.
My notion was further fuelled by the upset-hampered tipster’s battlefield that preceded the match in this round.
By 2pm, the feel-good factors were stacking up to the point where I was apologising to Dogs fans in advance.
Southeast Queensland came to the party by turning on a cracking day of sunshine, making positive footy its most achieveable. Titan top brass Scott Prince was a massive late inclusion to boost the look of the host’s line-up.
Add to this the fact that Des Hasler’s men were coming off a bruising loss and were without chief playmaker Trent Hodgkinson. It looked like moons were aligning over the golden sand at Surfers Paradise.
And after an early 10-nil lead, I thought my predictions were on target to materialise.
But what do you know? The Titan re-birth caramelised under the Queensland sun and they were eventually sautéed, like many other visitors this season.
Don’t get me wrong; they were brave. But it was a normal-business-resumed vibe, albeit on the back of some Ben Barba brilliance for the Dogs.
The much-needed plug to temporarily stem the stream of negativity was not forthcoming for the Gold Coast.
They were gallant, plucky, tenacious and all of those other words you see on a participant’s medal. But as we all know, courageous endeavour alone is rarely exchangeable for competition points.
So despite the painstaking and persevering application of their men, one suspect query continues to rack my skull. If Michael Searle wasn’t hogging the spotlight by telling smelly fiscal funnies from his messy books, would more questions be asked of John Cartwright and Scott Prince by now?
Asking for Cartwright to sit in the dock is like putting the crosshairs on Bambi.
But even a cute Disney animal would be triggered if it weren’t able to direct a team like his to at least break even in the W/L column.
As for Prince, he peaked in 2005 and 2010 but hasn’t been able to fish his side out of troubled waters when the river got murky.
Does that mean Titans fans with a penchant for a maths pattern can be urged to show patience in sight of another vintage return in 2015?
Perhaps he needs to play with the urgency of a man who needs to make his next mortgage repayment, which might not be far off if the joint implodes and he has to give his free house back to Searle.
Given the Titans have one of the competition’s more star-spangled playing lists, one win from five should have the wolves at least politely knocking on the door and asking to speak with the boss by now.
Perhaps in a macabre way, Cartwright and Prince secretly enjoy the acute scrutiny that Michael Searle and his BAS statements are currently under.
It’s providing a pleasant diversion from the bed-ridden performances the team has been producing this season.
What’s more, a prudent approach to cash management by Searle, brought on by the club’s circumstances, means that a contract payout should be nowhere on the horizon for either of his head hombres.
At least his misfiring calculator is helping someone out in some way.