Titans captain Ryan James has come out swinging in defence of his team's young halves Ash Taylor and Kane Elgey, saying there is no way they would hold the club to ransom with their commitment, with the skipper and coach also taking a big swing at coverage of the club in News Ltd masthead The Courier Mail during the week.
With coach Neil Henry being forced to field questions over his future amid reports Round 24's Eels clash would be his last at the club, and that following on from reports he was at odds with star fullback Jarryd Hayne, James used the post-match press conference to come to the defence of his coach and club.
"If you say 'allegedly' from an unknown source and you can say anything. It's BS," James fired after Henry had already deflected several questions on the issue.
It was reported that Elgey and Taylor were not prepared to re-sign with the club while Henry was still the coach.
"I know the media just came out and said it. I don't know how good their sources are because two young kids were rattled," James added.
Henry "100 per cent" has the support of the playing group, according to James.
Henry admitted the media focus recently had been "pretty relentless" and "not pleasant" but took particular issue with the scrutiny on the young halves.
"I tried to settle them down. Kane was really upset when the back page came out and he [said] 'where does that come from'. He addressed that and Ash Taylor said the same thing," Henry said.
"You can fabricate a story, have no decent quotes in it, you can run a back page and throw it out there and that's my integrity, my character, my image and two players, two young halves and you put them out there for something you've got absolutely nothing in there that validates that headline. The club hasn't got any of that either.
"I haven't, they haven't and yet it runs as a story on a back page on The Courier Mail. That's disruptive, it would be for any team and certainly for our players. They've got to try and put that aside and get on with the business for the team as well."
Henry said he hoped to continue his tenure at the club.
"I do [expect to be here next week]," he said.
"We'll do our reviews tonight with the coaching staff, tomorrow morning we'll look at a bit of vision with the players and go back a bit late because it was always planned to have a weekend off.
"We've got a long turnaround now until the Bulldogs game so I'll get on with that and I'm looking forward to doing that. Hopefully as I said before it's not my last game with the club. I'm contracted and I want to stay here."
Despite a horror month of on-field results, Henry said the signs were there that the future is bright for the team.
"I'm determined to stay there until I'm told otherwise," he said.
"We're trying to build something on the [Gold] Coast, it's a plan, it's a transition period and it's a young roster and we've had a lot of injuries this year.
"We've been up for a lot of games. We've had some great performances. We've beaten Melbourne Storm, we've had two wins against Cronulla… There's some good performances in those seven wins that suggest the team's got a good future. We're down at the moment but I thought that was a spirited performance tonight."
