Titans never turned up: Henry

Gold Coast have failed to fire with their NRL season on the line, succumbing 26-4 to Wests Tigers at Cbus Super Stadium.

West Tigers player James Tedesc0

Fullback James Tedesco was among the Wests Tigers try scorers against Gold Coast. (AAP)

Gold Coast coach Neil Henry has offered few excuses in the wake of his side's limp loss to Wests Tigers on Sunday night.

Needing a win to keep their finals hopes going, the Titans were listless in a 26-4 defeat at CBus Super Stadium.

The visitors controlled the contest thanks to constant errors from the Titans, who missed 21 tackles and completed just 19 of 32 sets.

Describing it as a "very poor performance", Henry questioned how his side could be so flat with so much on the line.

"We had everything to play for and weren't able to get into the game," the coach said.

"That scoreline was a true reflection of the game; we were out-enthused from start to finish."

After a frustrating first half, the Tigers broke the game open with two tries in quick succession.

The first included a fair slice of fortune, NSW fullback James Tedesco unintentionally getting a boot to ball close to the try line when most players thought he had knocked on.

Tedesco followed through and planted a hand on his own kick to score the most fortuitous of tries.

The Tigers were in again on the next set, Luke Brooks shrugging off Tyrone Roberts' tackle and putting Malakai Watene Zelezniak over in the left corner for a 14-0 advantage.

Gold Coast finally got on the board through Jarryd Hayne, who dummied and stretched with his right arm to score in the 54th minute.

But the Tigers' handy lead was reinstated 10 minutes later, Chris Lawrence strolling through a gaping hole for a club-record equalling 76th career try.

Aaron Woods then finished the job, barging over with three minutes remaining. Esan Marsters was the lone try scorer in the first half.

Tigers coach Ivan Cleary described it as one of his side's best efforts this season even though they only had four points to show for a dominant first 40 minutes.

"I thought up by 10 would have been about right, but it's about the second half anyway and we started that with a bang and went on with the job," he said.

"The Titans can play footy, they have a lot of strike players, but I think some of the errors they made were because we had bodies in the way."

The Titans shuffled their pack before the game, Hayne shifting to centre, Elgey from the bench to five-eighth and Roberts to fullback to cover injuries to Kevin Proctor and Konrad Hurrell.

Unable to get involved, Hayne returned to fullback after the break and Roberts moved to centre.


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Source: AAP


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