Three stats to fix: Titans

Justin Holbrook will be going back to the playbook to see how his new recruits can help the Titans fine tune their strategy in 2023 after finishing well below expectations last season.

NRL.com looks at three areas the Titans can improve in their game to challenge for the finals this season.

Metres conceded

The Titans conceded the most metres with a total of 42,263 and most on average (1,761 metres per game) in 2022, with Holbrook keen on limiting the amount of territory to opponents this season. 

With every carry opposition teams had against the Titans, they covered an average 9.8 metres per run.

In contrast, Penrith averaged just 8.5, indicating a significant 1.3m difference per run between the top and bottom teams for conceding yardage. 

Titans playmaker Tanah Boyd said the alarming statistic was something the side wanted to fix.

"Our big focus was our yardage defence in the pre-season and I thought we were still pretty quick there through the ruck," Boyd said following the Titans' pre-season draw with the Broncos.

"We know we can score points with this team, we’ve got plenty of skill there so that’s a positive but we still want to get better at our defence."

Going the distance

The Titans scored just 13 of their 82 tries last year in the final 20 minutes of games.

In return they conceded 28 for a difference of 15 and defensively struggled prior to and after half-time, conceding 34 in total.

There were 41 tries conceded in total through either an opposition kick return or error, showing the attention to detail wasn't quite there last year defensively.

Showing up for 80 minutes appeared to be another major focus for Holbrook during the pre-season, with his side running in three tries and holding the Broncos to a scoreless second half in their first Pre-season Challenge match.

Percentage of passes 

The Titans ranked 15th in the NRL last year with their passing game, only in front of the Raiders for throwing the ball around the least in the competition with 5,055 passes in the regular season. 

Heavyweight clubs Cronulla (5,898), Penrith (5,772) and Parramatta (5,679) were in the top three, highlighting the movement of ball during play from those sides in comparison.

Possession and completion rates play a part in those figures but the Titans will want to return to the days where they're shifting the ball to both edges and work on tiring out the opposition.

They ranked fifth for one-up hit-ups per game with 73 on average. While the Panthers, Rabbitohs and Eels all recorded higher averages, the Titans averaged only 49% of possession in comparison all season.