Former Gold Coast football manager Scott Sattler has criticised the playing group's leadership and called for an overhaul of the Titans' football department in the wake of coach Neil Henry's "humiliating" axing.
The Gold Coast junior and veteran of 203 first grade games blamed Henry's sacking on the senior players' inability to set a disciplinary standard at the start of the season.
Sattler said without a recruitment manager to coordinate contracts and player movement, Henry had unfairly earned the ire of his stars.
Chief operating officer Tony Mestrov divides his time between commercial and football operations, one of his duties being retention and recruitment.
But Sattler said that wasn't good enough and even suggested a coaching coordinator be hired, in addition to a new coach, to bolster the footballing nous at the club.
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"I feel for Neil, but I feel for Gold Coast rugby league; it's littered with the roadkill of former players and coaches who have been shown the back door," the former Gold Coast Seagulls and Chargers forward told AAP.
"A club needs to be run like a business, but the football department is a different beast and is where all the problems stem from.
"They don't even have a recruitment officer ... someone to take the flak when a player and their manager isn't happy with an offer, to take the heat off the coach."
Sattler said the feud between Jarryd Hayne and Henry, which Titans boss Graham Annesley admitted was the catalyst for the coach's early exit on Monday, could have been avoided if the senior players had set the standard earlier in the season.
"Maybe they were intimidated by Jarryd and his travelling circus, but the players needed to be consistent in their management of the team," Sattler said.
"It's not the coach but the players that need to uphold the values in that instance.
"Whatever the players have got (in terms of a leadership program) isn't working -- there's a lack of leadership across the board."
Labelling Henry's exit as a "humiliation in front of the rugby league public", Sattler said the Titans needed to clearly establish their identity or risk becoming irrelevant.
"They need a stronger playing group, because right now you don't know what the club's values are or what they stand for," he said.
"I've got no doubt Jarryd is next in the firing line, but it can work if the players set a standard of what it means to be a Titans player."
