This week’s NRLW Magic Round in Wagga Wagga has exposed a brutal travel schedule for several teams, including the Gold Coast Titans.
The Titans are in good form and are looking to make it four-straight wins against the Warriors at Geohex Park on Sunday.
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They’re coming off a 34-6 win over the Cowboys in Townsville last Saturday night.
After a short week at training, the side will have its captain’s run early on Saturday morning before flying to Canberra, then have to take a three-hour bus ride to Wagga Wagga.
After Sunday’s game they’ll take the return three-hour bus ride back to Canberra before staying the night then flying back to the Gold Coast on Monday morning.
They’ll get three days at home before flying back to Sydney to take on the Sharks on August 8.
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Titans coach Karyn Murphy said she was working closely with the club’s high performance team to identify player loads and how the girls are going physically and mentally.
“Most of the girls still come back and work every day as well, so it’s really managing them closely over the next period of time,” Murphy said.
“I appreciate the draw is really difficult and we understand that’s the way it is. Certainly the Cowboys and Warriors and Broncos are in a similar position.”
To make things even more difficult, many of the Titans players still work other jobs during the week.
Winger Lily Patston is one of them.
She’s a nurse at Lismore hospital and after the Titans beat the Eels in Round 3, she drove straight home because she was rostered on for a shift the next morning.
Gold Coast Titans NRLW head coach Karyn Murphy has a lot of planning to do.Source: Supplied
“She was battered and had quite a sore back after that game and she was rushing back to go on a 6am shift,” Murphy said.
“She’s still got to work, travel quite a distance and that’s what a lot of the girls do.
“They’re all working and coming to training so we have to plan around our training sessions over the next few weeks and it’s also getting a bit of a gauge on how we think they’re travelling over this period. That’s a little bit unique for us with all this travel all at once”
Murphy revealed she checked in with her Cowboys counterparts to see how they were handling their hectic travel schedule in the lead-up to Magic Round.
“I called the Cowboys and they fly from Townsville to Sydney on Friday, leave 9am and get there (Wagga Wagga) at 4pm, I believe,” she said.
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The Cowboys play in Wagga Wagga on Saturday before flying back to Sydney where they’ll stay the night, then fly back to Townsville on Sunday, arriving home at 2.45pm.
“I don’t want it looking like poor me or poor Gold Coast and we can see clearly the Cowboys and Warriors have it tough like us or are worse than us,” Murphy said.
“We’ve just got to manage the Townsville trip which was a big one for us, into Wagga, into Sydney. So for us it’s just managing this period in our season well.”
NRLW Magic Round kicks off on Saturday when the Sharks play the Tigers at 11.35am.