Holbrook confirms Titans captaincy structure
Titans coach Justin Holbrook has confirmed Tino Fa’asuamaleaui will keep the 'c' next to his name following an admirable first season in the top job.
Shutting down any speculation new recruit Kieran Foran may have shared or even taken over the prestigious honour, the Gold Coast mentor has been more than complimentary of the 22-year-old's maiden year in charge and has appointed an experienced group of players to help support the young skipper.
"It's definitely going to be Tino on his own," Holbrook said on SEN's Sportsday.
"We'll have a number of guys sitting under him like Kieran Foran and Sam Verrills, and AJ Brimson has improved out of sight with his leadership, especially at the backend of last year.
"When we won three out of our last four, he really stepped up and we've got Isaac Liu there as well; so there's probably four or five guys under Tino that will help him which is the way we want it, but I'm sticking with Tino to lead the charge."
Holbrook believes the inclusion of 262-gamer Foran and premiership-winner Verrills to the Titans leadership group alongside Brimson and Liu is only going to help Fa'asuamaleaui take his game and captaincy to another level this season.
"The great thing for Tino - and I've spoken to him about this and he agrees - is having Kieran and Sam there and the experience they've got, he can just lead with his actions and not have to worry about as much as he took on last year," he said.
"I think he'll really benefit from the experience around him and I think his game is going to keep improving. He's only 22, so he'll be exceptional for us this year and it's great to have him back training with us again."
Now a week back into pre-season training after the Christmas / New Year break, it's been a hive of activity at Titans HQ, with the Titans coach overseeing a more intense training regime in order to play finals footy in 2023.
'We've changed things in terms of doing more and working harder and things like that. We all knew that mentally we weren't terrific and we had some games we fell away in and that was pretty obvious," Holbrook explained.
"We've put together a training program that's challenging a lot more, and the players are okay with that. That's the best thing... they've got buy-in on that.
"No one was happy with how we went last year and we sort of got all that fixed towards the back in the last year. So the minute they came back in November, and even though we had key guys away at the World Cup, we weren't relying on them to come back and contribute.
"We all put things in place from before the end of the season, so when we came back in November, which we did, we hit the pre-season full of running, so it's just been a lot harder on the boys but they've been terrific
"They understand that what we did last year wasn't good enough, so we're covering everything and it's been enjoyable to watch."
