Gold Coast coach Josh Hannay couldn’t hide his frustration when asked about a short goal-line drop-out that backfired spectacularly on the Titans as they were run down by the Dolphins on Sunday.
The Titans carved out a 14-0 lead at Suncorp Stadium but their night took a turn for the worse when new recruit Lachlan Ilias gambled with a short drop-out in the 53rd minute.
Phillip Sami leapt high in the air above Jamayne Isaako and was able to tap the ball back but it dropped into the lap of Kulikefu Finefeuiaki, who proceeded to hurtle over to score the Dolphins’ first try of the game.
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Titans coach Josh Hannay speaking to media after the loss to the Dolphins. NRL Imagery
From there, the Dolphins added a try in the 68th minute through Jake Averillo and another in the 73rd via Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow to snatch an 18-14 win.
“The disappointing thing about that [the botched drop-out] is I don’t know that we’ve actually trained a process around that to what happens: who goes up to do that and who’s behind to get the scraps,” Hannay said in his post-game press conference.
“And that’s a little bit of what I’m talking about — lack of process, falling apart under pressure.
“To me, that was just a hopeful thing. There was actually no process to the short drop-out.”
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Hannay, who’s only two games into his first NRL head coaching gig, admitted “that’s on me as a coach”.
“If we’re gonna do that then we’ve gotta practise it,” he added.
“I understand, right? I think in that period we were on our line a lot, and they probably felt if we can just get the ball back here we’ll get some gas in the tank, kick it back and get back into some field position.
“But, yeah, the breakdown [of the] process there is the disappointing thing.”
The Dolphins grabbed their first win of the season, bouncing back from a 40-30 defeat to the Rabbitohs.
The Titans, on the other hand, remain winless from two starts this season, with Sunday’s result following a 50-10 belting at the hands of the Sharks.