One of the Titans' core values is being relentless, and that sure has been shown south of the Tweed the past few weeks.
Especially for the Northern Rivers Titans in the Andrew Johns Cup, with the squad persisting through so much adversity, such as wild weather, floods and the tyranny of distance... but yet their resilience, desire and determination to succeed has resulted in the Under 16 side qualifying for this weekend's decider in Sydney.
Defying the critics to knock off minor premiers Illawarra 20-16 on their home turf in a courageous contest last Sunday, they now are matched against Macarthur in the big dance with the dream of bringing the silverware back to the Northern Rivers, much like they did back in 2019 with current Gold Coast Titan Tom Weaver, who was the side's halfback and captain in that successful conquest three years ago.
Coach Shaun Davidson - who also held the reins in 2019 - was pleased with his side's effort to remain in the contest against the hot favourites, after coming out of the blocks firing.
"It was a game of two halves where basically in the first half, we executed our game plan really well. Everything we spoke about in the video session and at training we sort of executed and we stuck to what we spoke about pre-game. I think we had a point to prove last week as well," Davidson said.
"I was really pleased to go into the sheds up 14-0, but then the second half was a whole different story... but we battled and stayed in the game.
"We had that one opportunity in the back-end of the second half and we were able to ice it, which was really pleasing to see that we were to capitalise on just that one opportunity to win the game."
With their opposition also getting through with a relatively close 22-16 against the Northern Tigers, the Northern Rivers mentor knows they'll need to hone in on their focus areas if they are going to achieve success in the big dance.
Although, they have beaten Macarthur once already this season - 22-20 in the season opener in Camden.
"They're a big, physical team," Davidson said.
"We're going to have make sure to focus on ball retention, getting through our sets, looking at field position, kick to the corners, defend really hard with our line speed and make good contact to make sure we we don't give them good field position and the majority of the ball because that's what's going to trouble us if we do that."
Away from the footy field, it's quite incredible the strength of character shown by this group of young men who have had to endure the seemingly never ending number of distractions - including the understandable emotional challenge of their community being severely inundated by flooding, causing widespread devastation.
"We had two kids impacted with the floods... not as bad as our Under 18s, but with everything that's going on and the awareness that they have, everyone knows someone that's lost everything or been impacted somehow," Davidson said.
"We had coaching staff impacted. Some staff couldn't get back to their houses from the Central Coast game for over a week.
"It's good that we get to still get to play footy and represent the Northern Rivers in a way that the Northern Rivers people can be really proud and wearing that Titans badge which is massive as well."
With players coming from Grafton, Maclean, Lismore, Casino, Ballina and Tweed Heads each week, the side typically only gets to train once a week without distractions, but it makes it even more inspirational they are in the decider with only one mid-week session under their belt in the whole month of March due to the wild wet weather.
It just typifies the relentlessness and desire to want to compete on the field for their mates week-in, week-out and do the Northern Rivers region proud.
"We've only had one field session in March as we train midweek. We only get together and train on Wednesday nights, so we don't train a lot. The Sydney teams like the West Tigers and Dragons... they train up to three times a week," Davidson said.
"In that regard, we're really under done, but I think that just shows the character of the team and the togetherness we do have.
"We're not getting through what we need to do with our sets and reps on the practice pitch, but we're still able to come through all this adversity and pull together and get the result each weekend."
The Gold Coast Titans wish the best of luck to the Northern Rivers Titans in the Under 16 Andrew Johns Cup grand final, kicking off at 10am on Sunday, April 3 at St Mary's Leagues Stadium in Sydney.
