Gold Coast Titans snare five members of champion Palm Beach Currumbin schoolboy side
THE Titans have locked up a third of Australia’s champion schoolboy outfit, with the region’s best talent under the eyes of the Gold Coast club.
NRL
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THE Titans have locked up a third of the champion Palm Beach Currumbin schoolboy outfit, with the club’s new development system ensuring the region’s best talent is under the eyes of the Gold Coast club.
Strike centres Will Evans and Noah Gafa are contracted to the Titans, along with fellow backs Indiha Sao Tui-Huta and Caleb Hodges and bench player Solomon Torrens, while the club is chasing second-rower Juwan Compain, who was previously aligned with Brisbane.
While Tui-Huta, Hodges and Torrens would once have come solely under the Tweed banner, with the Titans just keeping an eye on their development, they are now part of the Titans’ program and will trial for spots in the club’s under-18 side at the end of the year.
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While a lack of resources previously led to delays in linking the region’s best young players to the Titans, new club owners the Kelly and Frizelle families have committed to greater funding to future-proof the club.
The increased funding kicks in at the beginning of the club’s financial year on November 1.
Titans Elite Player Development Manager Jamie McCormack said the club was thrilled for Palm Beach Currumbin’s success.
“We’re really extremely proud and happy for the PBC school in what they’ve achieved this year,” McCormack said.
“A number of the coaching staff are on our coaching staff here with the junior pathways and we have a really strong link with PBC.
“(Former NRL forward) Brenton Lawrence has been going in there and doing a number of sessions with the firsts on wrestling and ground skills.
“So we have really strong ties with PBC and we’re supporting those boys along the way.
“The talent that comes through that school is always of interest to us.”
Foundation Titans football manager and commentator Scott Sattler said it was “concerning” the Gold Coast did not have the majority of the PBC talent tied up.
“One thing the Gold Coast Titans themselves would admit is the last couple of years the club has been in a real holding pattern and when you’re in a holding pattern, what is affected is obviously finances to key departments within your organisation,” Sattler said of the time the club was owned by the NRL.
“ The most important department in the organisation is your development and recruitment and you need to have really competent, robust people that are representing any club in that role.
“I think the Titans would agree they haven’t had the ability to swim with the big boys in the same pool but moving forward, they have now got the ability to … declare they are going to invest a seven-figure sum into junior recruitment.
“They can now start playing in the big boys’ playground and start looking at tying up a lot of those locals.”
While the Broncos have three PBC players under contract, including halfback Tom Dearden, who won the Peter Sterling Medal as player of the competition, he is a Mackay product who has been in the Broncos system since the age of 13, while front-rower Xavier Willison was identified in New Zealand by Brisbane before moving to Australia.
But Sattler conceded junior recruitment was not always in the control of the clubs.
“You also have got to remember that player managers have automatic links to clubs,” he said.
“So sometimes it’s not about the NRL club and why they didn’t get them, it’s the link that manager has to a club.”
Keebra Park senior players Alofi Khan-Pereira and Eli Morgan, while Sebastian Winters-Chang, TJ Rau, Tevita Ngaruhe-Lavulo and Devontai Seumanutafa are contracted to the Bulldogs, with whom the club has an official link.
PBC grand final team and where they are contracted:
1. Indiha Sao Tui-Huta (Titans), 2. Caleb Hodges (Titans), 3. Noah Gafa (Titans), 4. Will Evans (Titans), 5. Ryan Garner (Bulldogs), 6. Toby Sexton (Bulldogs), 7. Tom Dearden (Broncos), 8. Jovahn Tearoiti (rugby union), 9. Jed Edwards (Eels), 10. Xavier Willison (Broncos), 11. Juwan Compain (unsigned), 12. Izzy Higgins (Roosters), 13. Josh Bevan (Roosters), 14. Nelson Groves (unsigned, was Broncos), 15. Solomon Torrens (Titans), 16. Damon Somerville (Broncos), 17. Aydn Anguna (rugby union). Also, regular fullback Glenn McGrady who was suspended for the final was signed by Penrith this year.
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