Des Hasler is facing the sack with his Titans needing to win 12 of their remaining 16 games this season to ensure the veteran coach avoids the axe in 2025.
It has been revealed that Hasler’s three-year contract has performance clauses that require the Gold Coast to play finals in 2025, according to The Daily Telegraph.
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The journalist who broke the story, Michael Carayannis, revealed what those clauses entailed.
“Massive news … He originally signed a three-year deal but there’s clauses in his deal and one of those is a top eight clause,” Carayannis said.
“That is if they don’t make the top eight this year, the Titans are under no obligation to keep him at the club next yet.
“There’s another element to it and that’s if when they are mathematically no chance of playing finals footy, they can split immediately.”
The Titans have won just two of their opening eight games and look next to no chance of playing finals for just the third time since 2011.
The number of premiership points required to play finals varies from season to season, but 14 wins guarantees a team a spot in September.
The Titans snuck in with 10 wins in 2021 but the Broncos missed out on 13 wins the very next year and that wasn’t even on point differential.
Hasler could reportedly be sacked this as soon as his side are eliminated from finals contention and there won’t be any financial repercussions for the club.
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Carayannis called the Titans’ decision to add the clauses as “shrewd management” given Hasler’s history with former clubs the Bulldogs and Sea Eagles.
“We’ve seen Des Hasler end up in the courtroom with his past two clubs and it hasn’t ended very well,” Carayannis said.
“This is a way to safeguard them and if Des has success, well he gets next year. If not, it’s a decision the club has control over and that’s not something that has happened around Des at the past couple of clubs.”
The 64-year-old two-time premiership-winning coach has the second worst winning record of any full-time Titans coach except for Garth Brennan.
He’ll have the worst if the Titans lose their next two games, against the Knights and Raiders.
Hasler is only 10 games shy of hitting the 500-game mark after stints at Sea Eagles and Bulldogs before arriving on the Gold Coast.
Wayne Bennett, Tim Sheens, Craig Bellamy, Ricky Stuart and Brian Smith are the only coaches to have overseen more NRL games than Hasler.
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