Newcastle’s rapid rise from the wooden spoon to preliminary finals has reignited a heated debate: did the Gold Coast make a mistake in sacking Justin Holbrook?
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Although if you ask CODE Sports reporter Dean Ritchie, it isn’t even a question.
“I don’t think it. I know it,” he said on NRL 360 on Monday night.
Ritchie clashed with Titans co-owner Gorden Tallis, who defended the club’s decision to dump Holbrook midway through 2023.
The sudden axing shocked Holbrook at the time, who did not know it was coming until he was called into a meeting with CEO Steve Mitchell at 9am on a Thursday morning.
The Titans (6-7) were equal eighth at that point, having previously made the finals in 2021 under Holbrook before slipping back to 13th in 2022.
The Gold Coast has now cycled through two more head coaches since Holbrook’s exit, with Josh Hannay the latest to try turn the club’s fortunes around.
But with the Knights preparing for a surprise preliminary final berth in Holbrook’s first year in charge, Ritchie said he only feels more strong about previously declaring it to be “one of the great blunders in Gold Coast history”.
That did not go down well with Tallis, however, who argued that was “two coaches ago” and that Holbrook did not live up to the lofty expectations he arrived at the Gold Coast under.
“At St Helens, he was at 80 per cent. At the Titans he finished at 38 per cent and now he’s at the Knights he’s at 62 per cent,” Tallis said.
“I would love Justin Holbrook’s Knights, him at our club. I’m so happy for Justin and what he’s building at the Knights and I’m sure the Knights are. But at our club at 38 per cent it wasn’t good enough.”
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Holbrook took over the Titans after they claimed the wooden spoon in 2019, immediately guiding them to ninth and eighth place before a bitterly disappointing 2022 put the now Knights coach under pressure entering 2023.
Middling results to open that season saw Holbrook punted, although Ritchie argued the club’s downturn since only further proves it had the right man for the job.
“Look where he is right now. Wouldn’t you love to be there right now,” Ritchie said.
“It has nothing to do with Des. I’m talking about Justin Holbrook who has kicked on to now a prelim. You know when he got sacked they were six and seven and they were at 46 per cent strike rate.
“I didn’t think Holbrook deserve to go. If they wanted to sack the bloke I thought Des was a good choice but I thought they shouldn’t have sacked the bloke… go through the records, 38 (per cent overall) is not bad at the Titans. They don’t have the luxury of 38 per cent coaches.”
Ritchie was also vocal in the wake of the Gold Coast’s decision to sack Des Hasler in 2025 after just 46 games in charge.
Hasler’s exit from the club was a lot more amicable than Holbrook’s, with the Knights coach telling Code Sports at the time he felt “awful” and was “totally gutted” by how it came about.
“I did not see this coming at all, that’s what I am pissed off about,” Holbrook added.
“I could understand if they said, ‘Look you have three games or whatever time period to do something’, but to be moved on like this, I’m still coming to terms with it.
“If they were a bit more open about the way things were heading, I would have been able to digest this, but it’s hit me out of the blue.”