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![\"Luke](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/nrl26_041225---l-sommerton.jpg\"\/)
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\n Luke Sommerton will provide plenty of competition after joining the Titans from Penrith.
\n \u00a9Titans Media
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Incumbent Titans hooker Sam Verrills has welcomed the newfound challenge for Gold Coast’s No. 9 jersey with the arrival of two new dummy-halves at Parkwood.<\/p>\n
Adding to the depth in that position is Panthers understudy Luke Sommerton who makes the move for a new opportunity after playing 12 games for Penrith after his debut in 2023; meanwhile, Ipswich Jets utility Oliver Pascoe has also been given a shot in a NRL system after claiming the prestigious Petero Civonceva Medal as the Hostplus Cup player of the year last season.<\/p>\n
Verrills, who begins his fourth season as a Titan in 2026, has enjoyed the friendly competition that has been created by new coach Josh Hannay – especially with Sommerton bringing premiership-winning experience to the Coast.<\/p>\n
“Luke’s a great lad and he’s come from a really good system at Penrith. He’s brought a lot of knowledge from that system and has bought into the culture and club here,” he said.<\/p>\n
“He’s a nine, I’m a nine; that’s how footy works and it’s healthy competition.<\/p>\n
“Last year, there were other nines here too and I think you always want to train as hard as you can each week [to earn your spot in the team].<\/p>\n
“It’s not my jersey… everyone has to fight for their jersey.<\/p>\n
“He’s a really good addition to the club and I’m happy to have him up here.”<\/p>\n
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\n Luke Sommerton will provide plenty of competition after joining the Titans from Penrith.
\n \u00a9Titans Media
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The 27-year-old has had his own title success in his maiden season with the Roosters in 2019 and hopes to replicate that with the new environment being created at Titans HQ.<\/p>\n
“I’d love to win another comp, especially up here as our maiden premiership,” Verrills said.<\/p>\n
“It’s really hard to win a comp as you can tell.\u00a0That [ambition] is well down the track, we’re still in pre-season but you’ve got to form good connections on and off the field and have a really good culture [as a starting point].<\/p>\n
“That’s what Josh is driving. Our culture is changing and we’ve brought in a lot of good players on and off the field.<\/p>\n
“If you can do that right and respect each other, it goes a long way on the field as well.”<\/p>\n
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‘We’re really enjoying the new environment’: Verrills<\/p>\n
It’s expected Verrills will form part of Hannay’s first-choice spine for Round 1 with the Titans mentor having previously hinted at who’ll line-up at fullback, five-eighth and halfback in the season opener.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019d love to give [AJ Brimson] a real opportunity at six,” Hannay told SEN in November.<\/p>\n
“I think his versatility has hurt him at times throughout his career to this point, but he has a great ability to play six.<\/p>\n
“I see his combination with Jayden Campbell (halfback) and Keano Kini (fullback) in our spine as a really dangerous one.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Incumbent Titans hooker Sam Verrills has welcomed the newfound challenge for Gold Coast’s No. 9 jersey with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-413535","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\/413535","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=413535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}