Gold Coast Titans saviour Darryl Kelly has given an incredible $25 million loan to save NRL club
The future of the Gold Coast Titans is secure after club saviour Darryl Kelly dug deep into his pockets to produce an extraordinary loan to bankroll the club’s survival.
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Titans saviour Darryl Kelly has made a $25 million sacrifice to turn the club into an NRL powerhouse as Peter V’landys vowed to not kill the Gold Coast with a new Queensland team.
The Sunday Mail can today reveal the remarkable contribution Kelly has made to ensure the long-term survival of rugby league on the Gold Coast.
Kelly and wife Joanne have offloaded a significant portion of their property and business portfolio to bankroll the Titans’ $25 million leagues club development.
In a competition where hands are permanently held out asking for money, the Kellys’ personal sacrifice is mind-blowing.
After initially losing more than $5 million in their first investment in the Titans, the modest family from Wagga Wagga joined Rebecca and Brett Frizelle to buy the battling club from the NRL in 2017.
Kelly has made it his mission to give the Titans a strong financial base to compete with the NRL’s most successful clubs.
To do that, the Titans needed a consistent non-football revenue stream and Kelly settled on financing a leagues club development at Oxenford.
At 69, Kelly knows the loan will never be repaid in his lifetime, but says there are more important things in life than money.
“We want to be one of the strongest teams in the competition and we need financial strength to be able to do that,” Kelly said.
“To make long-term decisions you need to know there is financial backing to facilitate those decisions.
“It’s a concession from me, not a sacrifice. I’m not giving it to anybody, I’m doing an unsecured loan.
“I am comfortable with it because I’m at a stage of life where other things are more important.
“I’m not someone who aspires to great (financial) heights and I’ve done a lot better than I ever thought I would. I’m more than comfortable with my position.
“I’ve been committed to this club now for eight years – I’m not going to walk away now.
“I need to get it to a point in the next few years where it doesn’t need my commitment.
“I am getting older. My usefulness is going to come to an end.”
When the Titans face the Wests Tigers at Suncorp Stadium tonight, there will be few keener observers than Kelly in the loungeroom of his Gold Coast home.
He lives and breathes the club’s results, partly due to his investment in the Titans but also from his love of rugby league.
It has been 364 days since the Titans last tasted victory in the NRL, with the club on a 14-game losing streak stretching back to the 2019 wooden spoon season.
Coach Justin Holbrook has overhauled the Titans by axing representative players Nathan Peats, Jarrod Wallace and Shannon Boyd for the Tigers game.
When you look at Kelly’s investment in the Titans it is easy to see why it pains him to see the team losing and uncommitted players failing on the field.
The Titans’ lack of success regularly raises questions about the club’s long-term future, but Kelly is unequivocal in his support.
“It is difficult – I am a fan of the game,” he said.
“I’m a member of the Titans football club and we’re all feeling the pain.
“I’m very confident in Justin and our football department to get the results.
“We’ve come from a very low base. We need to do a lot to improve, but I’m confident they will deliver.
“The NRL have never wavered (in their support of the Titans) since the day they took it over (in 2015). They did six months of research before they took over the club.
“They knew the Gold Coast was a key area for growth and is very important for the game. They shared our views. That’s why they invested the time and money into it and we’re carrying on from it now.”
When V’landys was appointed chairman of the ARL Commission late last year, one of the first goals he set was to bring a 17th team into the NRL from 2023.
If the NRL can emerge from COVID-19 in strong shape, the new team is certain to be located in south east Queensland, presenting the Titans with a new challenge on and off the field.
The straight-shooting Kelly fronted V’landys about his expansion plans and how they would affect the Titans.
“I caught up with Darryl at Christmas time and he expressed concerns,” V’landys said.
“We value his contribution enormously. He is one of the real benefactors for rugby league. We have the ultimate respect for him.
“There’s no way we’re going to do anything that will hurt the Gold Coast.
“They’re front and centre of our thoughts, there’s no way we’re going to do anything that will in any way harm them or the Broncos.
“The business case has to stack up. It’s going to have to have a very good business case and show how it doesn’t affect those two clubs.
“It’s got to make sense. It’s got to tick all the boxes.”
Kelly left his “two-minute conversation” with V’landys confident about the future of the Titans and rugby league in Queensland.
The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the leagues club plans and a potential change in the NRL clubs’ funding model under V’landys could mean the Titans are not as reliant on external revenue.
But Kelly remains committed to delivering the Titans the backing they need and embracing the competition of a new Queensland rival.
“With the coronavirus we will wait and see what the impacts are moving forward,” he said.
“We’ve got to understand the impacts before we commit to spending $25 million.
“We are very comfortable with where we sit at the moment.
“I am about the game – I always have been and always will be about what’s best for the game.”
Holbrook swings axe on underperforming Titans
By Peter Badel
Gold Coast coach Justin Holbrook insists his side does not have an attitude problem as the Titans attempt to break a 364-day winning drought against the Tigers at Suncorp Stadium.
Rookie NRL mentor Holbrook has shown he has the guts to make tough calls, dropping three stars with Origin or Test credentials in a bid to snap the Titans’ 14-match losing streak dating back to last year.
After starting his NRL career with three straight losses, Holbrook has swung the axe. Maroons prop Jarrod Wallace has felt his wrath. Former NSW hooker Nathan Peats will be watching from his lounge room, while ex-Australian prop Shannon Boyd has also paid the price for last week’s 36-6 loss to the Cowboys.
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On Holbrook’s watch, Gold Coast have already conceded 106 points to slump to last place. The Titans will be hoping Suncorp is their winning elixir for it was the very ground at which the Gold Coast won their most recent game, 26-18, against the Broncos on June 9 last year.
Despite the sombre statistics, former St Helens coach Holbrook insists the Titans’ playing group is not plagued by a cultural issue ahead of the Wests Tigers showdown.
“There are no poor attitudes here or a case of guys not having a go,” Holbrook said.
“Look, we need to raise our standards because we aren’t playing smart enough.
“Someone told me we haven’t won in a year and it’s true, I can’t deny that. But I can’t worry about results from last year under a different coach. All I can is try and get our first win this week.
“It’s one thing to say the effort is there, but we are doing some dumb things. They are training hard, the boys are putting in. But we had 34 per cent possession last week and you can’t win games like that.
“I definitely want a harder edge, I want to win and I want the guys competing on everything for 80 minutes.”
Holbrook stressed the relegation of Wallace, Peats and Boyd – who collectively boast 417 games of NRL experience – is not a sign he is reaching for the panic button.
“I feel fine, there’s no catastrophe here,” Holbrook said with a laugh.
“I’m not trying to make a statement (by axing players), I’ve explained the reasons to the boys.
“The worst part of my job is dropping blokes. All NRL players are competitive and I’m not giving them a chance to make amends, but they have taken it well and that’s all I can ask.
“Jarrod has been struggling with his back during the six weeks off and it’s been affecting him a touch. He is a bit off the pace of the game at the moment.
“With ‘Peatsy’, I just want to try some options at hooker. There’s speed at the ruck now (with one referee and six-again rule) and I want to give Erin Clark and Tanah Boyd a chance.
“I’m still tinkering with the side to find our best team.
“I can’t make changes forever because we will never get settled, but I don’t have a Cameron Smith (Storm legend) to roll out every week.
“I’m not OK with where we are sitting but I’m comfortable with the squad I have here. We aren’t far apart in standards and I’ve picked a side to get us our first win against the Tigers.”
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It’s been a baptism of fire for Holbrook.
He has gone from an 80 per cent win record and two years of ruthless dominance at St Helens to three consecutive defeats at the reigning NRL wooden-spooners in the world’s toughest rugby league competition.
But Holbrook is holding his nerve and refuses to trot out excuses.
“I don’t feel more pressure in the NRL,” he said. “The league fans in England are so passionate and if anything, more so (than NRL fans).
“Some people in the UK, their happiness on the weekend rides on whether their league or soccer team win or lose. There isn’t as much media exposure, but the fans are just as demanding. If you aren’t getting results in England, the fans let you know about it.
“I could buy myself time here and say, ‘Oh look, I need two years to get things right’.
“I don’t believe in that. I’ve been to a couple of clubs where the under-20s have had a bad year and then I’ve had a good year straight away with the team.
“As a coach, you should be able to make improvements straight away. That’s what I set out to do here. I didn’t want to be 0-3 and say I need time to rebuild the club.
“The results haven’t been good enough so we have to be accountable for that.”
Originally published as Gold Coast Titans saviour Darryl Kelly has given an incredible $25 million loan to save NRL club
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