Titans clipped over ‘wasting’ big money superstar David Fifita

Titans forward David Fifita was on fire early in the season but rugby league watchers have again been stunned by him sitting on the bench.

David Fifita has been warmed the bench for the first 30 minutes.

Mitchell Pearce has broken the hearts of the Gold Coast Titans, kicking a field goal to lift the Newcastle Knights into finals with a 15-14 victory.

It’s the second straight season for the Knights to make the finals and with less than a minute left, the wily veteran kicked the clutch field goal to confirm Newcastle’s place in the playoffs.

But while the dagger left the Titans needing plenty of results to go their way, some were left scratching their heads as the Gold Coast’s biggest weapon watched from the bench for most of the first half.

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In an arm-wrestle of a game with both sides not confirmed finals sides, the Titans took a 12-6 lead to the break, thanks to David Fifita bursting over down the right hand side of the field and scoring his 15th try of the year.

He’s just one off equalling the record for the Titans.

While that might sound like a hot run of try scoring form, he had scored nine in his first seven games.

In the next 12 games, he’s scored just five tries.

David Fifita scores. Photo: Fox League

While as expected his contributions have dropped by three runs and 16m per game, it’s expected with the reduced minutes.

But his tackle breaks, decoy runs and support play have all fallen significantly in the second half for the year, while he's missing more tackles on average.

While he had more than 100m off the bench against the 12th placed Dragons, 15th-placed Cowboys and 16th placed Bulldogs, he had just 77m and 61m in the last two games against top four locks the South Sydney Rabbitohs and ladder leaders the Melbourne Storm respectively.

Holbrook told Fox League pre-match that the reduced workload would give Fifita the best chance to succeed.

“I think back to what we’ve done previously, bring him off the bench and let a bit of the heat go out of the game,” he said.

“We don’t need him to play 80 minutes, we just need to get out to a good start and bring him on and let him have his impact.”

Mitchell Pearce broke the Titans’ hearts. Photo by Albert Perez/Getty Images

And against the Knights in an important match where the side could have pushed back inside the top eight with a game to play, Fifita played just nine minutes.

He had four runs for 34m and three tackles in that time.

His try was massive as it gave the Titans the lead the break, which was all important for the ninth-placed Titans.

Fifita only had to run 15m but ran around the outside of the Knights’ edge defenders and then was strong enough to slam the ball down in the corner.

“That’s what he can do,” Fox League’s Warren Smith said.

“The beast just rolls through Newcastle. This time they gave him too much space and once he got moving, he’s the unstoppable force.”

Smith added that the issue came at the defensive end of the field.

But premiership winning coach Shane Flanagan said: “Speed, power, footwork, skill, he’s got the whole lot. He needs to be able to defend in a system as well and get his job done there as well. The coach kept him off for a long period of time and maybe he’s right. Maybe he makes a difference in this next 40 minutes.”

Spoiler alert: it didn’t.

Fifita ended the game with 49 minutes, 10 runs for 107m and 21 tackles.

David Fifita celebrates his try against the Knights. Photo: Fox League

Particularly when he’s on a $3.5m three-year deal with the Titans, one of the biggest in the NRL.

The lack of game time was baffling for some including NRL great Willie Mason, who slammed the Titans on Twitter for the call.

“Ffs I just heard the excuse from the Titans why Fifita is not starting PSA ITS 2021 FORWARDS ARE FIT ASF!!! They all can bust out 30+minutes easy!! They don’t get TIRED! You’re wasting his prime!”

Newscorp’s Rob Sutherland tweeted: “Huge fan of the Titans paying Fifita $1.2 million a year to watch the footy.”

The Knights were led admirably by Kalyn Ponga throughout the first half, with the crafty fullback scoring in the 23rd minute.

But it was Mitchell Pearce who stood up in the second half, kicking a 40/20 and scoring in the 60th minute to even it up before a controversial penalty gave Jake Clifford a penalty kick to take a 14-12 lead.

The Titans then evened it up after Jayden Campbell was taken high in a tackle despite falling into the defence.

Originally published as Titans clipped over ‘wasting’ big money superstar David Fifita