Coach Ben Woolf's goal for his inexperienced Holden Cup side against Wests Tigers tomorrow is simple – to reduce errors early in the tackle count and show more commitment in defence.
Both sides suffered heavy losses in round one – the Titans went down 50-24 against the Sharks away while the Tigers were beaten 46-14 by the Dragons.
The Titans have only captain Kane Elgey, Jahrome Hughes, Christian Hazard and Shaun Hudson having had extensive Holden Cup experience, with centre Tevita Folau out for the season with a knee injury. This is likely to show in the early rounds.
"We struggled to control the speed of the game in the first half against the Sharks and compounding that was our error count, and we were punished for that," Woolf said.
"Our focus this week is on completing our sets; it just wasn't good enough in the first half against Cronulla. We were better bringing the ball out of our own end in the second half and have to build on that.
"We have few players who played 20s last year so the pace caught some out a bit, but they'll get better with experience."
The encouraging aspect against the Sharks was that Woolf's pack won the second half 24-10 after being behind 40-0, and showed a lot more composure and attacking flair off the ability to control possession, and dominate territory.
They have lost halfback Christian Hazard with injury with his place taken by Daniel Schwass. They will have Soape Palau, a cousin of Israel Folau (as is Tevita Folau), making his club debut in the centres after joining from the Broncos and playing with Burleigh Bears last weekend.
The Titans team: J. Hughes, N. Kelly, J. Hawkes, S. Palau, C. Broadhurst, K. Elgey (capt), D. Schwass, O. Tuiasau, D. Fletcher, E. Price, C. Morehu, J. Clarke, P. Wilson. Interchange: P. Ioane, J. Briskey-Luscombe, A. Colman, H. Schwass, J. Conners, S. Harold, J. Wedderburn-Parish.
