‘Time for change’: Fans, experts call for Walker brothers, Ben and Shane, to coach Titans
People initially decried Bazball and Angeball but the mood is warming towards Walkerball in the NRL after brothers, Ben and Shane, put their hands up to save the Titans.
NRL
Don't miss out on the headlines from NRL. Followed categories will be added to My News.
The push is on - from the common fan to experienced voices - for the Walker brothers to coach the Gold Coast Titans.
With veteran coach Des Hasler seemingly certain to depart at the season’s end, the public and several respected former players have reacted positively to this masthead’s news that brothers Ben and Shane Walker are interested in the job if it becomes available.
Remarkably, the Titans have never had a Queensland coach and the fans are calling for the club to be bold and appoint the two innovators whose teams were doing short kick-offs and cheeky drop-kicks well before they caught on in the NRL.
In a poll on this website of more than 1500 respondents, 85 per cent called for the Titans to appoint the Walkers.
Former Test utility Luke Lewis, who played 324 first grade games for Penrith and Cronulla, likes the freshness of the move.
“My theory is we’ve had all coaches who are all the same,’’ Lewis said on ABC radio.
“They coach the same, they all do the same thing and nothing has changed for the Gold Coast Titans. They need to mix it up.
“I have been saying this for ages, no one is willing to look outside the box, everyone keeps looking at recycled coaches who have had past failures. Why? I don’t understand it. Why not look at somebody different? The Storm went with Craig Bellamy years ago and they changed the game with the wrestle and what they could do to slow the game down.
“Clubs need to start looking outside the box. Why do the same thing over and over? It’s a really good opportunity, the Titans have nothing to lose.’’
Fellow commentator and former NSW halfback John Gibbs had similar sentiments.
“We spoke with Kieran Foran the other night and he talked about the generations and how they change,’’ Gibbs said. “If you can’t evolve as a coach, you will struggle, and they (Walkers) would understand youngsters. Sam Walker and other Walkers (Sam’s brother Tyson, just signed with Cowboys) through the system are outstanding players, so they would understand how to converse with the younger generations.
“Sign the Walkers up and you know what, they would be inexpensive and it would be a good value.’’
Ben is the father of star halfback Sam who could be a chance of leaving the Sydney Roosters and joining the Titans if his father if he lands the gig.
During the Walker brothers time coaching the Ipswich Jets, when they had the lowest budget in the league, the Jets played in six finals series and won the NRL State Championship in 2015.
Their winning percentage with the Jets of 54.5 per cent is more than double the 24 per cent achieved since they left the club.
Test great Andrew Johns, a free-thinker whose views of players and trends are often ahead of the pack, senses the Walkers could work on the Coast.
“Why would someone come and watch the Titans? Maybe because they throw the ball around, it’s entertaining to watch,” Johns said.
“If the Walker brothers were there and it was fun, and they threw the ball around and it was entertaining then maybe people would go watch and it could work on the Gold Coast.”
WALKER BROS: WE’LL SAVE TITANS
- Peter Badel
The premiership-winning Walker brothers, Ben and Shane, have put up their hand to save the struggling Titans in a move that could deliver Roosters sensation Sam Walker to the Gold Coast.
The co-coaching duo have confirmed they will apply for the Titans job if besieged Des Hasler is moved on and insist they have the skill set to win a watershed NRL premiership for the Gold Coast region.
This masthead can reveal Shane Walker has contacted Titans chairman Dennis Watt to formally lodge an expression of interest.
While critics of the Walkers would rate them long odds to ever coach the Titans, the premiership brothers have a family ace up their sleeve that could bring them into serious contention for any vacant Gold Coast post.
The Titans are crying out for a champion halfback.
Former NRL rookie-of-the-year Sam Walker is rated a generational halfback and he just happens to be the offspring of Ben, who dreams of having the same father-son alliance that has seen Nathan and Ivan Cleary win premierships at the Panthers.
Ben, 48, and Shane Walker, 47, famously led Ipswich to the 2015 Queensland Cup premiership – the only title in Jets history – and their coaching ability has been lauded by rugby league Immortal Andrew Johns.
Now, with the Titans in crisis and hurtling toward another wooden spoon ahead of Sunday’s derby against the Broncos, the Walkers have outlined their grand plan to rescue the Gold Coast.
“I am absolutely certain we would win a premiership at the Titans,” Ben Walker said.
Asked if they will apply for the Titans job if it became available, Walker said: “Yes, absolutely.
“I can’t tell you the number of people I’ve had approach me saying, ‘We hope you guys are considered for the Titans job, please put your hand up for it’.
“It’s a job Shane and I have always wanted because there’s a lot of similarities between the Titans and the Ipswich Jets, who had the lowest budget in the league when we won the Queensland Cup.
“We’d do the Titans job tomorrow and I can guarantee we would have success.
“Wayne Bennett coached my father when I was three years old. The game is in our blood.
“The only concern would be trying to fit everyone into Cbus Super Stadium to watch Titans home games … we would fill every seat in the joint.”
This masthead can reveal Titans bosses have been inundated with coaching applications in recent days in the event the club parts ways with Hasler.
The Walkers were last interviewed for the Titans post in 2017, when the club opted for Garth Brennan, who lasted just 18 months before being sacked after steering the Coast to the wooden spoon.
But since that time, another Walker, Ben’s son Sam, has emerged as an NRL star.
At just 18, Sam Walker won the Dally M rookie-of-the-year gong after a sizzling 2021 season and now, at age 23, the Ipswich product is regarded as one of the code’s best young halfbacks.
Walker is contracted to the Roosters until the end of 2027, but there is natural appeal in being coached in the NRL by his father.
Ivan Cleary quit the Tigers to mentor his son at Penrith and Ben said he would relish the prospect of teaming with his boy to lead a Titans revolution.
“Look, Sam loves the Roosters and I can’t guarantee he leaves there if we got the Titans job,” Walker said.
“But I’ve always been envious watching Nathan and Ivan Cleary winning premierships together at Penrith and I’d love the idea of me and Sammy doing that at the Titans, for example.
“Sam is a winner. He’s already in the top echelon of halfbacks and unless he falls off a cliff form wise, I believe he will be one of the greatest halfbacks we’ve ever seen.
“He will win premierships, whether that’s with the Roosters or the Titans.
“But if I’m at the Titans, Sam Walker is a halfback I’d be trying to get.”
The Walkers’ coaching style has been described as “risky” but their results are extraordinary.
After taking over a wooden-spoon Ipswich outfit in 2011, the Walkers steered the Jets to five consecutive finals campaigns, culminating in the club’s maiden premiership, defeating Kristian Woolf’s star-studded Townsville Blackhawks in 2015.
Since the Walker brothers severed ties with the Jets at the end of 2019, Ipswich has won just 22 of 91 games. They have not been back to the finals and had a shocking 0-20 record under Ben Cross two years ago.
Ben Walker is adamant he and Shane can overcome a six-year coaching absence, saying they still follow trends in the game intently.
Speaking of trends, every NRL team today uses the short dropout, a tactic the Walkers pioneered 15 years ago in the Queensland Cup and predicted would find its way to the big league.
“Our aspirations to coach aren’t any different today to what they were,” Ben said.
“We still pick games apart today and we’re forever theorising about how we would play the game today if we were coaching in the NRL.
“Sam is playing in the NRL so in terms of knowledge, we’re still up with the current trends.”
The Titans have largely been a basket case since their inception in 2007 and Walker has a few theories. One is that the Titans have never had a Queensland coach in the club’s near two-decade existence that understands the fabric of the region.
“Nothing against New South Wales, but we are bred differently up here,” Ben Walker said.
“The Broncos had success with a Queensland coach in Wayne (Bennett) and the Cowboys won their only premiership with a Queenslander in Paul Green.
“The Gold Coast is a rugby league town that is home to a lot of tradies, so it’s blue collar, but there’s also a touch of glitz and glamour about the place.
“Ipswich had never won a premiership until we got there and I believe we would deliver a premiership for the Titans with an attractive style of footy that matches what the Gold Coast is about.
“The Titans have never had success, but we believe the Gold Coast is a sleeping giant.”
SBW storms out, Gallen flipped the bird
Sonny Bill Williams did not take defeat to in their highly anticipated bout on the chin, storming out of the ring and then out of the stadium.
‘NOT GOING TO GLOAT’: Gallen vs SBW result shocks boxing world
The judges and just about everyone watching were split on the winner after Paul Gallen and Sonny Bill Williams finally met in the ring.