Robert Craddock: Laurie Daley not coaching answer at Gold Coast must embrace Queensland roots
WHO are the Gold Coast Titans and what do they stand for? At their best you have to love their grit but their true identity is something of an enigma.
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THE push to make Laurie Daley the face of the Gold Coast Titans sums up a club still searching for its identity.
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Who are the Gold Coast Titans and what do they stand for?
At their best you have to love their grit but their true identity is something of an enigma.
The Queensland club who have never been coached by a Queenslander, their sky blue colours are those of Queensland’s dreaded south of the border rivals.
One of their biggest name players, Greg Bird, was loathed north of the border and their current spearhead Jarryd Hayne, another New South Welshman, even gets jeered by his own fans.
From the moment Blues legend Bob McCarthy coached the first incarnation of the Gold Coast teams in 1988 there has been a feeling they have fallen between two stools — not Queensland-to-the-core enough to bleed Maroon but certainly not south of the border sympathisers.
It’s nobody’s fault. If you are building a club on the Coast why would you want to be so totally Queensland you alienate every fan south of Tweed Heads?
But the risk is that you become a bit like that cup of tea with too much milk that has no distinctive flavour.
If the Titans are to fight their way out of the their current depression the most obvious way forward is to Maroonify the club.
Get a Queensland chief executive like experienced Shane Richardson back from Sydney, get your recruiting men to throw a net over the greatest rugby league nursery of all time up the road at Logan, and find a local coach passionate about winning over the local area.
There is no doubting Daley’s decency as a man or his worth as a coach.
He is impossible to dislike and few New South Welshman have been as admired north of the border as Daley.
If he gets the job, good luck to him.
But getting Daley or fellow New South Welshman Michael Maguire to coach the Titans next year requires the floating fan to get all passionate about yet another southern coach drifting through the region on their way to nowhere in particular.
One thing’s for sure. The day when the club eventually does go local and finds someone from the region, or at least a hardy Queenslander, will be one to celebrate.
Kevin Walters did the right thing by staying with the Queensland job but he is the sort of character they need.
Someone who transforms the image of the club and what it stands for with the stroke of a pen grabs Queensland fans by the heartstrings instead of having them sit back and watch a team who is not sure who they are.
Originally published as Robert Craddock: Laurie Daley not coaching answer at Gold Coast must embrace Queensland roots
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