The premiership-winning
Walker brothers, Ben and Shane, have put up their hand to save the struggling Titans in a move that could deliver Roosters sensation Sam
Walker to the Gold Coast.
The co-coaching duo have confirmed they will apply for the Titans job if besieged Des Hasler is moved on and insist they have the skill set to win a watershed NRL premiership for the Gold Coast region.
This masthead can reveal Shane
Walker has contacted Titans chairman Dennis Watt to formally lodge an expression of interest.
While critics of the Walkers would rate them long odds to ever coach the Titans, the premiership brothers have a family ace up their sleeve that could bring them into serious contention for any vacant Gold Coast post.
The Titans are crying out for a champion halfback.
Former NRL rookie-of-the-year Sam
Walker is rated a generational halfback and he just happens to be the offspring of Ben, who dreams of having the same father-son alliance that has seen Nathan and
Ivan Cleary win premierships at the Panthers.
Ben, 48, and Shane
Walker, 47, famously led Ipswich to the 2015 Queensland Cup premiership – the only title in Jets history – and their coaching ability has been lauded by rugby league Immortal Andrew Johns.
Now, with the Titans in crisis and hurtling toward another wooden spoon ahead of Sunday’s derby against the Broncos, the Walkers have outlined their grand plan to rescue the Gold Coast. “I am absolutely certain we would win a premiership at the Titans,” Ben
Walker said.
Asked if they will apply for the Titans job if it became available,
Walker said: “Yes, absolutely.
“I can’t tell you the number of people I’ve had approach me saying, ‘We hope you guys are considered for the Titans job, please put your hand up for it’.
“It’s a job Shane and I have always wanted because there’s a lot of similarities between the Titans and the Ipswich Jets, who had the lowest budget in the league when we won the Queensland Cup.
“We’d do the Titans job tomorrow and I can guarantee we would have success.
“Wayne Bennett coached my father when I was three years old. The game is in our blood.
“The only concern would be trying to fit everyone into Cbus Super Stadium to watch Titans home games … we would fill every seat in the joint.”
This masthead can reveal Titans bosses have been inundated with coaching applications in recent days in the event the club parts ways with Hasler.
The Walkers were last interviewed for the Titans post in 2017, when the club opted for Garth Brennan, who lasted just 18 months before being sacked after steering the Coast to the wooden spoon.
But since that time, another
Walker, Ben’s son Sam, has emerged as an NRL star.
At just 18, Sam
Walker won the Dally M rookie-of-the-year gong after a sizzling 2021 season and now, at age 23, the Ipswich product is regarded as one of the code’s best young halfbacks.
Walker is contracted to the Roosters until the end of 2027, but there is natural appeal in being coached in the NRL by his father.
Ivan Cleary quit the Tigers to mentor his son at Penrith and Ben said he would relish the prospect of teaming with his boy to lead a Titans revolution.
“Look, Sam loves the Roosters and I can’t guarantee he leaves there if we got the Titans job,”
Walker said.
“But I’ve always been envious watching Nathan and
Ivan Cleary winning premierships together at Penrith and I’d love the idea of me and Sammy doing that at the Titans, for example.
“Sam is a winner. He’s already in the top echelon of halfbacks and unless he falls off a cliff form wise, I believe he will be one of the greatest halfbacks we’ve ever seen.
“He will win premierships, whether that’s with the Roosters or the Titans.
“But if I’m at the Titans, Sam
Walker is a halfback I’d be trying to get.”
The Walkers’ coaching style has been described as “risky” but their results are extraordinary.
After taking over a wooden-spoon Ipswich outfit in 2011, the Walkers steered the Jets to five consecutive finals campaigns, culminating in the club’s maiden premiership, defeating Kristian Woolf’s star-studded Townsville Blackhawks in 2015.
Since the
Walker brothers severed ties with the Jets at the end of 2019, Ipswich has won just 22 of 68 games. They have not been back to the finals and had a shocking 0-20 record under Ben Cross two years ago.
Ben
Walker is adamant he and Shane can overcome a six-year coaching absence, saying they still follow trends in the game intently.
Speaking of trends, every NRL team today uses the short dropout, a tactic the Walkers pioneered 15 years ago in the Queensland Cup and predicted would find its way to the big league.
“Our aspirations to coach aren’t any different today to what they were,” Ben said.
“We still pick games apart today and we’re forever theorising about how we would play the game today if we were coaching in the NRL.
“Sam is playing in the NRL so in terms of knowledge, we’re still up with the current trends.”
The Titans have largely been a basket case since their inception in 2007 and
Walker has a few theories. One is that the Titans have never had a Queensland coach in the club’s near two-decade existence that understands the fabric of the region.
“Nothing against New South Wales, but we are bred differently up here,” Ben
Walker said.
“The Broncos had success with a Queensland coach in Wayne (Bennett) and the Cowboys won their only premiership with a Queenslander in Paul Green.
“Ipswich had never won a premiership until we got there and I believe we would deliver a premiership for the Titans with an attractive style of footy that matches what the Gold Coast is about.
“The Titans have never had success, but we believe the Gold Coast is a sleeping giant.”
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