NRL Rich 100: The Titans history is beset by poor recruitment
On Saturday the Gold Coast Titans signed David Fifita to a three-year deal. It is their best signing after years of paying way over the odds for talent.
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They are the reigning wooden-spooners with a stable of highly paid, underperforming stars.
Despite operating from the same salary cap as their 15 NRL rivals, the Titans’ slide into the premiership cellar can be attributed to the failure of their big-money, big-name stars to deliver value for money.
Although maybe that is about to change with the news that David Fifita has signed a three-year deal starting next season. \
News Corp’s exclusive NRL Rich 100 has laid bare the spending strategies of the 16 clubs and the embattled Titans have paid the price for spending millions of dollars, only to receive a poor return on investment.
Seven Titans qualified for the NRL’s top 100 salaries — Ryan James, Shannon Boyd, Jarrod Wallace, Nathan Peats, Tyrone Peachey, Kevin Proctor and their highest-paid player, $1 million halfback Ash Taylor.
Collectively, the Gold Coast’s Super Seven — worth $4.6 million in total — take up about 46 per cent of the Titans’ salary cap.
The problem is the highly paid contingent have largely failed to fire, with some plagued by form and injury problems and others axed from the top squad altogether.
Taylor was so out of sorts last year he wasn’t mentally capable of taking a penalty goal and temporarily quit the NRL to ease the strain as he sought help from a psychologist.
James was outstanding in 2018 and almost cracked the NSW Origin squad, but since the start of 2019 he has played just six games because of back-to-back knee reconstructions.
Peats and Wallace have played Origin in the past few years but have both been dropped this season by coach Justin Holbrook, while Boyd is so out of favour he wants to retire to farming.
Peachey last year claimed he was homesick just months after arriving at the club from Penrith, while Proctor has never lived up to the form he showed in his premiership years at Melbourne.
There was also the Titans’ much-hyped signing of Jarryd Hayne in 2016 which turned into a $1 million disaster with the ‘Hayne Plane’ crashing and burning after just 23 games.
Graham Annesley served as Titans chief executive for five years between 2013-18 and was at the club when all seven deals were done. Now the NRL’s head of football, Annesley defended the Titans’ spending habits.
“Player recruitment and retention decisions are made by the recruitment committee which manages the salary cap, decides who to target and how much to offer,” Annesley said.
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“One thing I will say about the Titans is that when you have a team that isn’t performing or winning premierships, you often have to pay more money to try and attract quality players.
“Unfortunately, as every club in the game knows, there is no guarantee a player will live up to his wage and sometimes you do invest on potential. Sometimes it is successful, sometimes it isn’t.”
Taylor was in hot demand when the Titans signed him to a club-record deal in 2017, Annesley said.
“Ash was one of the most sought-after players in the competition at the time,” he said.
“The Titans didn’t just offer up extra money for the sake of it. We had to match the interest in Ash and these are the challenges every club faces when a highly rated player becomes a free agent.”
Originally published as NRL Rich 100: The Titans history is beset by poor recruitment