Tyrone Roberts has declared he will remain a leader for the Titans in 2020 – regardless of whether he has the “C” beside his name in the match-day program.
Roberts stepped up magnificently last year to lead the wounded Titans when regular skipper Ryan James had his season torpedoed by an ACL tear in Round 6 against the Knights at Cbus Super Stadium – leading the Titans in 11 of the 15 games he played in an injury-ravaged year.
While Roberts said it was a “privilege” to captain the Titans last season, as a senior player it was up to him to provide leadership for the playing group – whether he is captain or not.
“You don’t really ask for it, you just do it … You be a leader on and off the field,” Roberts said. “If you are given that ‘C’ when you play, you take it with both hands because it means that people are looking up to you.
“But if you don’t have the ‘C’, you do the exact same thing – on and off the field.
“For me it was a privilege, to get the ‘C’ this year. I enjoyed it. It was a challenge and I accepted it, and it was a learning curve for myself.
“When you get the ‘C’, you don’t really want t change who you are. You do have that role to take the team forward.
“I tried not to change, and tried to be who I am and be more approachable for players because we are a young group. You don’t want to intimidate them, but you also have to lead by example.”
Roberts is off-contract at the end of 2020, one of 14 Titans playing for new deals for 2021 and beyond, and says he is focussed solely on producing results on the field to keep the Titans interested in keeping him a little while longer.
“You can’t control that, it’s nothing I can control,” he said of his looming free agency. “All I can control is how I train, and what I do on the field.
“Hopefully they talk to me! But that is up to them.”
