Manly 2.0? Hasler declares Titanic shift is coming
Titans coach Des Hasler says the club is on the rise like Manly’s golden era
Under pressure Gold Coast coach Des Hasler insists the Titans are on the rise, comparing the battling NRL franchise to Manly before the Sea Eagles embarked on a golden era under his watch.
Des Hasler has launched a passionate defence of the Titans and says he can see shades of Manly’s golden era emerging on the Gold Coast.
Hasler has avoided the axe for another week and will lead the Titans into Saturday’s clash with four-time premiers Penrith at Cbus Super Stadium.
The Titans coach has been widely-tipped to exit the club this year after failing to lift the NRL’s cellar dwellers out of the bottom four.
The Titans are staring at a fourth straight finish in the bottom four and could collect the club’s third wooden spoon – something Hasler has never experienced in a 21-year NRL coaching career.
But the two-time title-winning coach has remained defiant amid constant speculation about his future and insists the Titans are on the right track, despite limited evidence of improvement on the field.
Hasler, 64, started his NRL coaching career with Manly in 2004 before piloting the club to the 2008 and 2011 premierships and reckons the Titans are tracking in a similar direction.
“I’ve been saying all along I’m really confident about where this side can go,” Hasler said.
“You see performances like last week (24-16 win over Warriors) and there’s a whole lot of other relevant information that’s pretty well hidden. I won’t disclose it here.
“I know we’re on the right track, I really, really do. I saw it with another club called Manly-Warringah back in 2004.
“I know where it can go and that excites me.”
When pressed on how he can say that when the Titans have fallen down the ladder under his watch over the past two years, Hasler said: “I’m a great believer in that and you will see it change. You will see a change.
“I could run off and label off the fact that we’ve had injuries and this and that, but I don’t want to do that because I think that sort of underachieves (sic) what we’re trying to do.
“I’m very much a big believer. It’s much more built around that ‘next man up’ attitude and that’s where it’s going and I know we can nail it.
“I know this club can do it. That excites me.”
The issue for Hasler is that a poorly managed roster means he doesn’t have the playmaking personnel at his disposal that helped Manly to three grand finals in five years.
The classy Jamie Lyon and Matt Orford were at the helm for the Sea Eagles’ 2007 (loss) and 2008 deciders against Melbourne.
In the 2011 triumph against the Warriors, Daly Cherry-Evans wore Manly’s No. 7 jersey in his debut NRL season on the way to becoming one of the game’s greatest halfbacks alongside Kieran Foran, now a 300-game legend in the final weeks of his career at the Titans.
The Titans have loaded up their roster with overpaid, underperforming forwards and have signed too many fullbacks on big money, with AJ Brimson and Keano Kini locked up until 2030.
That has left Hasler attempting to convert the supremely talented and instinctive Jayden Campbell into a halfback.
Hasler has made limited changes to Gold Coast’s roster since replacing Justin Holbrook in late 2023 and was evasive when asked if he’d look to shake-up his group.
“We’ll see what comes up in the next couple of months, but this isn’t the correct platform for it,” he said.
“I wouldn’t say there’s a depth issue.”
The Panthers are on a seven-game winning streak and have won their past six games against the Titans, with Gold Coast’s last win coming in 2019.
