Wayne Bennett has resisted the push to shift some Gold Coast Titans games to Brisbane, with the master coach insisting there was no reason the troubled NRL franchise can’t thrive on the Glitter Strip.
It has been reported that a cabal of former rugby league administrators including ex-Melbourne Storm duo John Ribot and Chris Johns were advocating to move up to eight Titans games to Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium and for the club to be rebranded.
It prompted Titans executive chairman Dennis Watt to reaffirm the club’s commitment to the region and insist they were going nowhere.
This year the club’s average crowd has slumped to 11,816, almost half of what it was during their second year in the competition in 2008 (21,618) and they this week sacked coach Garth Brennan.
Former Brisbane and Queensland coach Bennett said there was no reason Australia’s sixth largest city couldn’t support a rugby league team, especially one located in rugby league heartland in south east Queensland.
Asked if relocation was feasible, the South Sydney coach replied: “I don’t see that happening.
“There’s a great market on the Gold Coast, they had a pretty big following there in the early stages as the Titans. They’ve just lost their way a little bit.
“They’ve just got to get themselves back on track, they’ve got quality players there, a great facility, I can’t see why they’d be leaving the Gold Coast.”
The Titans have appeared in the finals just once since 2011 – in 2016 when they qualified eighth because Parramatta had competition points deducted because of salary cap irregularities.
Highlighting their troubled history, Gold Coast have now sacked each of their three head coaches: John Cartwright, Neil Henry and Brennan.
The club went into voluntary administration in 2015 and were forced to hand their licence back to the NRL before being taken over by current owners Darryl Kelly and Rebecca Frizelle.
“It did work when they first kicked off as the Titans, they got some good results there,” Bennett said.
“For whatever reason they just lost their way, certain things happened with the business as well.
“(Former owner) Michael Searle got in a fair bit of trouble there and they built a high performance unit.
“It did work at one stage, and it’ll work again.”