Titans' Win Proves Costly

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday June 4, 2007

Glenn Jackson

Titans 28

Raiders 8

ASKED yesterday whether the new Gold Coast franchise was where he wanted it to be at the season's halfway mark, Titans coach John Cartwright answered unequivocally that it was. But he added a major footnote. Or should that be a leg-note.

After losing Brad Meyers to a possibly season-ending knee injury yesterday and Michael Hodgson for a stint on the sidelines with groin troubles, Cartwright said he hadn't counted on losing so many forwards in his first stint as an NRL coach. Which is why the Titans may be looking to continue the NRL's mid-season immediate signing spree in a bid to beef up their front row.

The Titans had just recorded their sixth victory of the season, lifting them into eighth place, but their work over the opening 12 rounds is threatening to be undone after Meyers suffered suspected anterior cruciate ligament damage in yesterday's 28-8 win over Canberra, adding to the round-five loss of Michael Henderson with a broken leg.

Asked if he wanted to dip into the player market now, Cartwright said: "Things change all the time. We are getting to the stage where we are very skinny in the front row. We might just have to manufacture one somewhere. I'm not sure who's there and what our position is salary-cap-wise. We'll work that out when we see how bad they are."

As they stand at the moment, Meyers and Hodgson were both "not looking good", according to Cartwright, with scans today to confirm whether Meyers had damaged his ACL after being hit hard in a tackle by Canberra monolith Dane Tilse in the 21st minute.

"He [Meyers] is going to be out for a stretch of time no matter what it is," Cartwright said.

Gold Coast managing director Michael Searle confirmed a mid-season trade would be considered, suggesting there is still some room in the Titans' salary cap.

Such was the sweet and sour nature of yesterday's fest, Cartwright was busy trying to scratch around for positives out of their 20-point win.

And not just because of their ... "proplems", either.

After losing Hodgson to a groin injury in the warm-up, forcing the Titans to field David Myles for his debut with the club, just a day after he played for Tweed Heads in the Queensland Cup, the Titans still led 28-0 at half-time as they ended the game as a contest. Problem is, in the second half, they ended the game as a spectacle, too, with a disappointing attacking display which yielded no points.

"It wasn't pretty," Cartwright said. "But if you look for negatives you'll find them anywhere. If you look for positives, they [the Titans] tackled their butts off, and we've broken any sort of record we had for tackles made in the second half, we were down to one front-rower, we had a bloke who played a game yesterday. I think that second half was always going to come."

Still, they are placed rather nicely for the second half of the season.

"I think a lot of people said at the start that we'd be lucky to win five games, so it's nice to get six up so early in the season," Cartwright said. "I'm sure by the end of the week when we get the two points for the bye we'll be in the eight, and then it's up to us - someone's got to knock us out of there."

They have been boosted through the addition of five-eighth Josh Lewis, one of the first players to jump ship mid-season, moving from the Sydney Roosters to the Titans.

He is taking significant focus off Scott Prince, crystal clear yesterday as Prince ran rampant in the first half, setting up four of the Titans' five tries - two to winger Matt Petersen. The Raiders were poor in the first half, but they, too, had problems. They had lost Adrian Purtell late in the week through, unusually, deep vein thrombosis, which forced a major reshuffle which ended in five-eighth Terry Campese playing at centre. Purtell will be out for between two and three months.

"We know we have to work each week to get a win, and we've built a little bit of momentum, but all we talked about was the fact that the Titans were always going to toss up a bit more with their attack than Souths and St George were," Raiders coach Neil Henry said. "We talked about it but we didn't go out there and defend that way."

MATCH FOCUS

BONE CRUNCHER

Of a different sort, anyway. Neville Costigan hurled the ball, unintentionally, at Scott Prince and the ball hit Prince, in, ahem, his crown jewels. Play was stopped for several minutes.

WHAT THE?

Maroons coach Mal Meninga was in the Canberra coaching box yesterday with Neil Henry, keeping an eye on prospective Queensland talent. He wouldn't have got a lot out of it.

© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald

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