{"id":313469,"date":"2025-11-28T02:59:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T02:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/313469\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T02:59:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T02:59:09","slug":"lachlan-ilias-set-to-make-halfback-his-own-at-titans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/313469\/","title":{"rendered":"Lachlan Ilias set to make halfback his own at Titans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gold Coast signing Lachlan Ilias is determined to win the coveted starting halfback jersey in 2026, having heeded new coach Josh Hannay’s words of wisdom.<\/p>\n

The challenge is immense for the former South Sydney and St George Illawarra playmaker, after the Titans have just re-signed incumbent No.7 Jayden Campbell on a monster deal through until the end of 2031.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/p>\n

Hannay wants Ilias to have a red-hot crack at his goal to give him a welcome selection headache.<\/p>\n

“I’ve come here with belief. I know what I can do but I know I can do a lot more as well,” Ilias told AAP.<\/p>\n

“That’s something I have spoken about with Josh. He thinks I haven’t reached my potential and I agree with that.<\/p>\n

“Josh told me to come here and not feel any pressure, to come in nice and relaxed and put my head down and work hard.<\/p>\n

“I love my extras and wherever the team needs me to go I will do it but I am definitely going to put my best foot forward for the No.7 jersey.”<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old’s career so far has been one of extreme highs and lows.<\/p>\n

Lachlan Ilias has moved to the Gold Coast Titans.\u00a0Mark Metcalfe\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Ilias led the Rabbitohs to a preliminary final in 2022, when he played 26 games for the season. He backed that up playing all 24 matches the following year.<\/p>\n

He was dropped early in 2024 then rubbed out for the year after breaking his tibia in NSW Cup after a bad tackle by Warriors player Freddy Lussick.<\/p>\n

lias played St George Illawarra’s opening seven matches after a fresh start in 2025 then was dropped to NSW Cup and never recalled to their NRL side.<\/p>\n

Ilias made recent headlines when he said on the Unscripted Podcast he was not treated fairly at the Dragons, received little feedback and insisted “the best team wasn’t picked week-in and week-out”.<\/p>\n

“I stand by what I said in the podcast, but I am not going to say much more. I’m looking forward to being a Titan in 2026,” Ilias said.<\/p>\n

There was a silver lining in his 20 games in reserve grade, where he was taken out of his comfort zone and learned plenty about leadership.<\/p>\n

“We had a lot of young kids and I took on the role of being a mentor which I am not really used to,” he said.<\/p>\n

“For me now, I think it is just about taking control.<\/p>\n

“At Souths there was the combination of me and Cody Walker. I was still a young kid then but over a couple of years I have developed that skill. There are a lot of good players at the Gold Coast and if I can take control and unlock their skillsets, the sky is the limit for this team.”<\/p>\n

Ilias said the training and vibe under Hannay had already been a huge boost as the Titans aim to march up the table after finishing 16th in 2025.<\/p>\n

“It is a great crew up here and we are all keen to take the club in the right direction,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gold Coast signing Lachlan Ilias is determined to win the coveted starting halfback jersey in 2026, having heeded…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-313469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}