NRL 2024: Gold Coast Titans coach Des Hasler ‘really pleased’ despite horror season start

A winless start to the season has thrust the Gold Coast Titans into wooden spoon favouritism, but coach Des Hasler has called for calm and insisted he’s “pleased” with the way his side is playing.

The Titans have made a poor start to life under Des Hasler. Picture: Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images

Des Hasler has declared he’s been “really pleased” with parts of the Titans’ terrible start to the year as a pre-season prophecy from the new Gold Coast coach threatens to come to fruition.

The Titans will be hunting for their first win of the Hasler era when they host the Dolphins at Cbus Super Stadium on Easter Saturday.

In a boost for the battling Gold Coast, Hasler said Queensland Origin star David Fifita would return from a pectoral injury and make his first appearance of the season.

The return of Fifita and fullback Jayden Campbell (knee) should add some spark to an attack that’s looked clueless in shocking losses to the Dragons (28-4) and Bulldogs (32-0).

A two-time NRL premiership-winning coach with Manly, Hasler was brought to the Gold Coast to replace Justin Holbrook and transform the Titans from title pretenders to contenders.

But they appear to have gone backwards based on early-season form, although that may not be entirely surprising to Hasler.

In his first interview as coach of the Titans last October, Hasler called for calm if Gold Coast was slow out of the blocks.

The Titans have made a poor start to life under Des Hasler. Picture: Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images

“If we go loss, loss, loss, loss don’t be worried,” he said at the time.

“It happened in 2021 (at Manly) and we made a preliminary final.”

The issue for Hasler is he hasn’t got Dally M superstar Tom Trbojevic in a purple patch of form like he did during Manly’s 2021 charge.

Instead, Hasler has gone back to the fundamentals of the game to try and get the Titans firing.

“There’s parts of our game that we are really pleased with,” Hasler said on Friday.

“We feel like the effort and intent (has been good), particularly around certain attributes of defence, even though a 32-point scoreline doesn’t reflect that.

“You can definitely see the effort, but the concentration is about getting a bit of consistency with our attack. The attack weighs heavily on our ability to be disciplined with the ball.

“When you talk about discipline with the ball it’s not just the unforced errors, it’s also our discipline on the field with penalties and six-agains (sic).

David Fifita will return from injury against the Dolphins. Picture: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

“We need to make sure we earn an equal share of possession.”

While Hasler is under pressure after just two games, he found an ally in Dolphins coach Wayne Bennett.

“Des has got quite a challenge on his hands,” Bennett said.

“He will be changing things. If he’s not changing things, what did he go there for in the first place?

“He obviously felt they weren’t doing things well enough.

“It is a time thing. You’ve got to be patient with it. You’ve got to take the criticism that comes with it.

“If you know what you are doing, and I am sure Des does, they will get it right.

“He’s been a long-term coach so I’ve got to assume he has got that quality (patience). We all get under pressure so it is how you handle that.

“I am pretty confident they will be wanting to turn their season around. We will just have to be good ourselves.”

Originally published as NRL 2024: Gold Coast Titans coach Des Hasler ‘really pleased’ despite horror season start