NRL 2021: Gold Coast Titans Season Review

The Gold Coast Titans entered the 2021 NRL season full of expectation, and while it was a rocky road, finals football lay at the end of it.

Here’s your Gold Coast Titans Season Review for 2021:

• The Season In Brief: Stats and Summary
• Takeaways From 2021
  • Things I Liked: Fifita adjustments, Middles moving the ball
  • 3-2-1: Jayden Campbell, AJ Brimson, Justin Holbrook
  • Summer Notepad: Depth Discussion
• Preseason Prediction Throwback
• Way Too Early Thoughts On 2022

---

The Season In Brief

We’re summing up the NRL season in a few words before getting into the nitty-gritty and breaking down some of the key moments in 2021.

By The Numbers

David Fifita and the Gold Coast Titans managed to keep the scoreboard ticking over for most of the season to average 24.2 points per game (6th). Their issues came in defence where they conceded 24.3 points per game – often in bunches. A desire to shift the ball resulted in only 67.6 one-pass hitups per game (13th) but came off often enough to average 1,725 running metres per game (5th). The Titans performed well in the right areas but struggled to do so across the full 80 minutes.

Copy: Bar Chart
Infogram

The Season In 200 Words

Potential has been synonymous with the Gold Coast Titans for a few years now but in 2021 they finally delivered. The club splashed the cash on big-name signings David Fifita and Tino Fa’asuamaleaui, and while neither played to their full potential this season, they both did enough to see the Titans play finals football. Their Week 1 finals loss to the Sydney Roosters will be unfairly remembered for Patrick Herbert’s match-deciding play in the final seconds when we should be celebrating Gold Coast’s ability to keep it that close against a premier club, injuries aside.

Inconsistency hurt the Titans this season. Inconsistencies in their lineup due to injuries and form translated into inconsistent performances on the field. AJ Brimson was never quite at full fitness while Holbrook couldn’t settle on a five-eighth and hooker to partner Jamal Fogarty in the halves. As a result, the Titans struggled to create repeatable actions in attack due to a lack of combination and cohesion across the field.

In their rotation of play makers, the Titans unearthed a next-gen talent in Jayden Campbell while rookie halfback Toby Sexton also had some promising moments. It’s enough to think the Titans are still on the up.

---

Takeaways From 2021

Things I Liked

Jason picks out a few moments, matches or players that he liked most throughout the 2021 NRL season.

Fifita Adjustments

There is a lot to like about David Fifita.

He’s an absolute monster with the ball and I’ve got no idea how teams are going to contain him once he gets a better grasp of the smaller things involved with being an elite backrower.

His effort at different points during a match became a talking point alongside his hefty pay packet throughout the year. While he did go missing from time to time and was never the most reliable forward in tough yardage sets, he was worth the money this year. The Titans wouldn’t have played finals football without David Fifita.

I do have some concerns over how he was used at times, though. There was a ‘pass it to David’ feel early. Justin Holbrook moved him to the right side, but the switch itself is overstated. He caught some favourable matchups straight after the switch. In reality, he will do similar damage on either side of the field and whether he starts or comes off the bench.

What was more encouraging as the season went on is the small adjustments made to how they used him in good ball sets. Fifita is the focus of the edge defence as soon as the ball begins to move in his direction. His gravity is like no other and the Titans need to work on finding a better balance between giving him the ball and missing him.

They looked to use him as a decoy more often later in the season, but their execution was off given the relative unfamiliarity in those situations.

This shape here in Round 24 is a prime example of how much of an influence Fifita can have on the defence without even touching the ball, and how easy it should be for the Titans to score.

The Titans have the big ball players to play at pivot and Sam Lisone does a great job of playing relatively close to the line along with Fifita to attract three Knights defenders. Jake Clifford is fixed on Fifita all the way – most halves would be. However, Jamal Fogarty attempted the one pass he shouldn’t have in this situation. Having Patrick Herbert continue on his inside line to attract Bradman Best and playing out the back to Jayden Campbell would have resulted in a try nine times out of ten.

Still, this is a play that started to become more common later in the season and using Fifita more effectively without the ball is surely something Holbrook and the attacking staff are talking about over the summer.

He is taking a similar path to Kikau who was also used as a battering ram early in his career. How he’s doing this:

If Fifita adds a pass and some soft hands to his bag, it’s over for every edge defence in the NRL.

Middles Moving The Ball

The Gold Coast Titans middles weren’t afraid to throw the ball around this season. Jarrod Wallace, in particular, added a nice little pass to his game to recapture form and become a regular feature of the Titans attack.

Wallace shifted the ball from the kickoff four or five times throughout the season. As the defensive team tracks up the field fairly compressed and down the side the ball is kicked, Wallace took the pass as though he would truck it up before flinging the ball to the middle of the field, usually to a waiting AJ Brimson.

Their effort in Round 9 against Wests Tigers is a beauty.

It starts with Wallace making a line for James Tamou as soon as he takes possession. Typically preparing for a hit up and to get three players into the tackle, Tamou, Jacob Liddle and Luciano Leilua are all focused on Wallace. Holding the ball just long enough to keep the defence compressed, Wallace releases a pass, and bang, the Tigers have nine players filling less than half of the field leaving two down the right edge and two in the backfield.

Brimson skips through the line with relative ease. Adam Doueihi sees the danger out on the right edge and tracks across but is wrong-footed and Brimson leaves him clutching at air. With only the fullback to beat it’s a simple catch and pass – try time.

It didn’t always come off quite like this, but it worked well enough that even the teams that had done their homework and came prepared still needed to be switched on for something as monotonous as a kickoff deep into opposition territory. It’s a nice little adjustment few other teams are looking to execute at the moment. In fact, Wallace’s good mate Matt Lodge is one of few middle forwards I recall attempting it and that was way back in 2018.

He did the same thing: Made a line for a middle forward, dragged in the back rower and put a teammate through a gap between the back rower and centre.

Teams will catch on a start to plan for this move, but the ingenuity and willingness to try something different is encouraging. The game is always changing (more than it needs to but that’s another discussion) and coaches need to constantly adjust. Don’t be surprised to see others follow a similar approach to kickoffs in 2022.

3-2-1

True rugby league fans will know there’s nothing more legitimate than the Dally M’s 3-2-1 voting system…With that in mind, Oscar picks out three elements from the 2021 season that deserve a mention.

3 – Jayden Campbell

In a season where multiple next-generation stars made their debut, the arrival of Jayden Campbell on the NRL scene came with considerable fanfare. The pressures of a household surname and the expectations of a growing club fell on deaf ears as Campbell made his debut in Round 13 and finished the season with seven games, five tries, three try assists and an average 4.4 tackle breaks per game.

With a wonderful combination of speed and agility, Campbell provided instant impact as a ball-runner and ballplayer in Gold Coast’s attacking shapes. 

He can punish defenders one-on-one with his footwork and it helped the Titans march upfield in yardage sets. Campbell is only small but he is lightning quick and uses his footwork to find his front like in this action, rather than getting dominated in the tackle. 

He is also effective in these actions as a ballplayer when Gold Coast earned attacking field position. 

Campbell’s timing is perfect as he sweeps around the left edge to create the extra man for Gold Coast here. Dallin Watene-Zelezniak tries to jam in and shut the play down but Campbell holds the ball just long enough before popping a neat pass to Brian Kelly in support. The sample size is only small but Campbell looked confident as a ballplayer in actions like this and I have no doubt he’s got a long ball to his winger in that bag of tricks, too. 

Where Campbell really impressed, however, was in his ability to create something out of nothing in attack. 

Solo efforts like this in Round 25 against the Warriors are the type of plays that saw Tom Trbojevic win the Dally M medal in 2021. With a bit of ruck speed and the defence still rolling backwards, Campbell spies an opportunity and goes himself from dummy-half. Reece Walsh has come into the line at A defender meaning there is no fullback waiting out the back and Campbell drops a perfectly weighted grubber into that vacated space to score. It’s not a repeatable action the Titans can rely on but it showcases a combination of vision, skill and effort that has Campbell in good stead moving forward. 

Oh yeah, and he also did this. 

In two games against the Melbourne Storm this season Campbell ran for a combined 290 metres, broke eight tackles and scored two tries. His ability is obvious but the fact Campbell was able to produce moments like this in big games and in a losing team was impressive. I’ve already got a love affair with the Titans incumbent fullback (more on that below), but it seems Campbell did enough in 2021 to see him start next season with the #1 on his back and I’m all for it. The Titans are a better side with both Campbell and AJ Brimson on the field and how they combine in 2022 will be a key narrative of the Gold Coast’s season. 

2 – AJ Brimson

Regular readers will know I’m pretty big on AJ Brimson. He was my favourite player in the back end of 2020 when the Titans won six of the nine games he played and although he couldn’t replicate that form in 2021, Brimson was still one of Gold Coast’s best this season playing at fullback. With the emergence of Jayden Campbell, however, it seems likely Brimson will move into the halves and while I’m usually against moving your best player from his best position, I’m not sure I mind this move at all. 

From the few isolated actions we saw of Brimson in five-eighth positions this season, he looked more than comfortable.  

With a little skip to the outside Brimson beats Jason Taumalolo for speed easily here and engages Scott Drinkwater in the defensive line. Brimson is a threat running in these actions which forces Drinkwater to turn in and leave poor Jake Granville one-on-one with a rampaging David Fifita. It’s a rare example of Gold Coast using their million-dollar-man effectively and Brimson got it right a few times. 

Brimson doesn’t do much at all here, which is exactly why it’s so effective. He identified a weakness in the defensive line with the 82kg Cody Ramsey defending at centre and constructed a shift for the 107kg Fifita to punish him. A simple block shape and an early pass is enough to get Fifita one-on-one with Ramsey and the big backrower does the rest. 

It’s a perfect example of how easy it is to create opportunities for Fifita to be effective in attack, which makes it all the more frustrating that the Titans didn’t do it enough in 2021. Brimson appears to have the smarts to construct these actions and it’s enough to have me backing him in at #6 to begin the season. 

What excites me most, however, is this short-side play from Round 18.

It doesn’t result in a try on this occasion but it’s a very promising and repeatable action Gold Coast can spend the summer planning for. Playing at five-eighth, Brimson will spend the majority of his time on one side of the field. Ideally Holbrook gives him a license to roam but with the #6 on his back Brimson can pick his moments based on how the defence is moving. He’ll have plenty more opportunities to punish lazy defenders down very short sides like this if he’s playing in the halves and he’s got a very reliable winger outside him in Corey Thompson who will ice these opportunities more often than not. 

The move to five-eighth will be a challenging one for Brimson. Where he has been most effective in the past is in genuine fullback-like involvements – in kick returns or popping up as an extra man in backline shifts against retreating defensive lines. He hasn’t spent much time creating these opportunities himself but from the small sample size Brimson provided us this season, I’m backing him in. 

1 – Justin Holbrook

Justin Holbrook has done exactly what he was brought on to do as head coach in 2020. He has developed the Titans from a struggling club into a club that has been in finals contention two years running – a narrow miss with a ninth place finish in 2020 and a Top 8 berth in 2021. That Gold Coast bowed out in week one of the finals isn’t the point, the point is that Holbrook has this team trending in the right direction. 

How far he can get them moving in that direction is the next question. 

Holbrook has had two seasons to build a roster to his liking and having played finals in 2021, everyone will expect the same again next year. In reality, the Titans only won 10 of their 24 games this season – hardly convincing numbers for a top eight team. There’s a few clubs who finished below Gold Coast this year that many are expecting to improve markedly in 2022 – Cronulla, Canberra, Brisbane – which means the Titans must improve themselves if they want to hold their position on the ladder and if Holbrook wants to hold his position as coach. 

Holbrook does have a few good cases to argue. The development of forwards Moeaki Fotuaika, Jaimin Joliffe and Beau Fermor, in particular, were positives for the Titans and for Holbrook’s coaching credentials in 2021. Fermor especially had a breakout season and did enough to keep David Fifita on the bench for the remainder of the year. 

Summer Notepad

The NRL Notepad is a feature that has run all season. With the 2021 campaign wrapped up, we’re starting to think about what we’d like to see between now and March next year.

Depth Discussion

The Titans first-choice 17 appeals and is absolutely a finals calibre team. Their depth leaves a lot to be desired, though. Only three teams used fewer players than the Titans in 2021 and they still felt stretched when covering injuries and suspension.

Depth – or luck with injuries – is crucial for a team flirting with the Top 8 so I’m listening out for the classics throughout the preseason: