NRL News 2023: Des Hasler spotted at Gold Coast Titans HQ for first time

The Titans have made a recruitment and retention pledge as incoming coach Des Hasler hits the Glitter Strip for the first time.

Des Hasler is the new coach of the Titans. Picture: Gaye Gerard

Incoming Gold Coast coach Des Hasler has made a secret trip to the Glitter Strip and will not be presiding over mass changes at the club in his quest to bring a watershed premiership to the Titans.

This masthead can reveal Hasler embarked on a hit-and-run mission to the Gold Coast on Tuesday just days after being announced as the Titans’ coach from next season following the sacking of Justin Holbrook.

Hasler toured the Titans’ headquarters at Parkwood and had a meet-and-greet with Gold Coast employees to get a feel for the club ahead of his formal starting date on November 1.

The two-time premiership coach also met owner Darryl Kelly face-to-face for the first time since inking a three-year deal in Gold Coast’s mission to break their 16-year premiership drought.

Hasler did not meet Titans players out of respect to current interim coach Jim Lenihan, who kept Gold Coast in the finals hunt with a stunning 18-12 boilover of the Broncos last Sunday in his first game as Holbrook’s temporary successor.

Titans chief executive Steve Mitchell played a key role in luring Hasler to Parkwood and he believes the 458-game coaching veteran has the work ethic and resume to turn the Gold Coast into a bona fide title force.

Des Hasler met with Titans officials. Picture: Brett Costello

BREAKING @telegraph_sport@BuzzRothfield@BulldogRitchie@DaveRic1@FatimaKdouh_@brentread_7@MCarayannis#deshasler#goldcoastitanspic.twitter.com/qD4fGXhquv

— Scott Bailey (@BooBaileyTele) June 22, 2023

“We’re excited about what Des will bring and we’ve got a player roster that’s growing,” Mitchell said in the wake of Hasler’s bombshell appointment.

“We think we need a winner in that place and someone who’s got the (knowledge) and has been to grand finals.

“The time is now.

“I’m really looking forward to Des’ work tempo, that will be extraordinary for our business and the people inside it,

“He is going to stretch us, which is exactly what we need. He will be fantastic for the player group.

“I feel responsibility in the fact we’ve got an obligation to create a football environment whereby these athletes, and we’ve got a wonderful roster, have the best opportunity to become the best players in their own right and achieve what they can achieve.

“We feel we haven’t created that environment and we think Des will bring that. His experience and those decades of coaching, his winning ways and DNA.

“It’s very unusual to have a coach of Des’ ilk in the market where he is non-employed,

“Like all things in life, with people that stretch you, you achieve more than you thought you would.

“I can’t wait for that challenge.”

While new coaches traditionally sweep a boom through a club by injecting fresh personnel, it is understood Hasler does not plan to rip the Titans apart on or off the field.

Holbrook’s assistant Lenihan, who will coach his second game in Saturday’s clash against Canberra, is expected to remain, as is fellow staffer Brett White, who joined the Titans this season and has overseen their defensive structures.

Hasler is happy with the Titans’ playing roster and believes the club has a solid footing to finals prosperity with the likes of skipper Tino Fa’asuamaleaui, Queensland Origin teammate David Fifita, AJ Brimson and his former Manly pivot Kieran Foran.

Titans veteran Kieran Foran (L) praised incoming coach Des Hasler.

Foran won a premiership with Hasler at the Sea Eagles in 2011 and the Titans veteran lauded the coach’s influence on his career.

“Me and Des are so close,” Foran said when he joined the Titans in pre-season from Manly.

“I love him like a father.

“He has been so loyal to me throughout my career and it’s fair to say he has believed in me from the day I debuted for the Sea Eagles.

“I will forever be grateful to Des. He believed in me when others didn’t and I am a bloke that repays loyalty.

“Not everyone sees the other side to Des but he is a coach who really cares about his players.”

TITANS WELCOME ‘CYCLONE’ DES

The Titans have dropped a bombshell on Justin Holbrook.

And in the process, the Gold Coast will soon learn the bombshell will have shockwaves when Holbrook’s successor, Des Hasler, walks through the gates of Parkwood.

Cyclone Des is about to hit the Gold Coast.

The years of myopic mediocrity will be swept away by a coaching Mad Scientist who will demand excellence and quickly jettison anybody at the Titans not prepared to sacrifice all in pursuit of a premiership.

“It’s going to be a shock to the system of everyone who works at the Titans,” said a former Hasler disciple.

“When Des arrives, the Titans will never be the same again.”

Perhaps the Hasler touch is precisely what the Titans need. For too long, the Gold Coast have been happy to merely exist in the NRL and largely they are an irrelevance in a cutthroat rugby league industry where the Titans have the worst membership in the competition.

But the stunning sacking of Holbrook, an evisceration rarely seen in the NRL, could be the first sign the Titans are ready to get ruthless in their stated quest for two premierships within the decade.

Signing Des Hasler proves the Titans are ready to get ruthless. Picture: Getty Images

Holbrook’s dismissal was a knockout punch that left him sprawling on the canvas.

The Titans coach had no idea the blow was coming when he was summoned to a meeting at Parkwood at 9am on Thursday.

Titans boss Steve Mitchell called Holbrook into the Gold Coast boardroom. Holbrook’s manager was also notified, sounding the first alarm bells.

Mitchell delivered the bullet, telling Holbrook his services were no longer required. The coach was handed paperwork detailing the severance package that ostensibly represented a signpost of the harder, Hasler-infused edge looming at the Titans.

The dismissal was so covert, Titans senior advisor Mal Meninga, the man who headhunted Holbrook from St Helens in 2020, was not aware of the Hasler raid.

Floored by the discussion, Holbrook could barely construct a sentence as he tried to mount a reasonable defence. His agent, Chris Orr, left the meeting shell-shocked.

“This decision by the Titans is absolutely disappointing when you consider they are two points away from fourth position,” Orr said.

“Justin had two clubs chasing him at the end of last year and yet he chose to recommit to the Titans.

“At the end of the day it’s professional sport.

“It can be ruthless at times and clubs have to make tough decisions on coaches and sometimes players as well and players also sometimes choose to leave a club for their own personal reasons.”

Holbrook has every reason to be gutted - Gold Coast are in finals contention this season - but the Titans are going with a gut feel and their gut tells them, in Hasler, they finally have a coach that can make them a bona fide title force.

Gold Coast’s past coaching appointments have been shambolic. Garth Brennan’s installation before Holbrook was an abject embarrassment, an ill-conceived, reckless, ad-hoc arrangement that relied on advice from people outside the club.

Titans bosses did zero research on Brennan and got their medicine. They finished with the wooden spoon.

Justin Holbrook never saw his sacking coming. Picture: Getty Images

This time, they have landed, on paper at least, the most accomplished coach in their 16-year history in Hasler.

In many ways, the warm-natured Holbrook is everything that the ultra-obsessive Hasler is not.

Holbrook was so well liked by Titans players he was seen as too nice. Skipper Tino Fa’asuamaleaui, who won a premiership under the ruthless Craig Bellamy at Melbourne, had spoken to Holbrook about the Titans needing to find more mongrel.

That calculating menace will be injected by Hasler, who, like Wayne Bennett, has the unique knack of being liked as well as feared.

The entire Titans organisation should be on their toes about Hasler’s impending arrival next season.

The former Manly coach runs the show his way and his way has no room for slackers. He will demand excellence and he will make demands, some financial, of Titans co-owners Darryl Kelly and Rebecca Frizelle, who have tried to run the Coast on a far tighter budget than Hasler enjoyed at Manly and Canterbury.

If you are a Titans player, get ready to be challenged like never before.

At the Bulldogs, Hasler made every player at the club buy an iPad to install a program he sourced from the NFL. The program allowed him to upload coaching tips and clips to every player at any time. When they clicked on the link, it would notify Hasler they were watching it.

One player, sick of the relentless footage, got his four-year-old to watch the clips. That player didn’t survive the Hasler regime.

Are the Titans players ready for Cyclone Des? Picture: Getty Images

Demanding Des had CCTV cameras installed at Belmore for instant analysis of on-field training. He had spotters passing on every facet of media morsels written about him and the club.

“I always have people watching,” Hasler would whisper with a glint in his eye.

Added the coach’s former associate: “He will get people at the Titans to adapt like they have never adapted before.

“If you want to go with Des, he has a truly brilliant mind and he will take you on the journey.”

While Holbrook attempts to pick up the pieces, the Titans are hoping Hasler’s journey leads them to the promised land of a maiden premiership.

“I’m really looking forward to Des’ work tempo,” Titans boss Mitchell said.

“That will be extraordinary for our business and the people inside it.

“He is going to stretch us, which is exactly what we need. He will be fantastic for the player group.

“In regard to the development of individuals and player group, he’s going to build in great IP (intellectual property).

“Like all things in life, with people that stretch you, you achieve more than you thought you would.

“I can’t wait for that challenge.”

Time will tell if Cyclone Des wreaks havoc on the Gold Coast ... or is the glorious gale force that sweeps the Titans to title glory.