While the NRL world was dominated by the Daly Cherry Evans affair last week, there has been plenty of encouraging news about young Titans who we hope see the Gold Coast as their field of dreams.
It is important not to forget the young local talent coming through our Titans junior pathway programs and, if representative selections are an indication, we are lookng good for the future.
During the past 18 months the Titans have looked at improving our pathway programs to ensure local talent has every opportunity to access the best possible development programs, those which that are equal to any other program provided by NRL clubs.
“We are making great progress with our pathway programs and the inclusion of our high performance unit has taken our players to another level with the ultimate goal to produce NRL players,” said Titans elite player development manager Jamie McCormack
“Some of our HPU members have achieved some outstanding results in 2015, showing that our pathways are working and are full of talent.”
Some of the representative achievements are:
Geordie Brand (Logan Brothers) and David Butler (Helensvale) selected in the Queensland under-15 Schoolboys team
Max Dowd (Southport), Darius Farmer (Ipswich) and Ben Thomas (Beaudesert) selected in Queensland under-16 Origin team
David Fauid (Norths) and Tyronne Roberts Davis (Southport) selected for Queensland Opens Schoolboys
Keanu Dawson (Burleigh) and Joshua Fauid (Norths) selected in the Queensland under-18 Origin team
Sam Elliott (Lismore) been selected in the NSW under-18 Origin squad after representing Northern Rivers’ senior team at 17
Joshua Fauid also recently made his Intrust Super Cup debut for Brisbane Norths at just 17 while Greg Leleisivao (Burleigh) debuted in the Titans’ NYC team at age 18 and been impressive in his two appearances.
As well as this list of achievements above we have local talent like Josh Ralph (Runaway Bay), Ethan Roberts (Tugun) and Zac Beecher (Ballina) playing regular first grade in the Gold Coast and Northern Rivers competitions at 17 years of age.
The challenge now is to transform their ability and potential as young teenagers into Titans NRL players to ensure our club is built on local talent.