Kiwi-NRL Spotlight: Paul Turner's Titans Foundations
In his last game of the season and his first game back at Mt Smart since joining Gold Coast Titans, Paul Turner snatched a win away from his former team. Turner came off the bench for Titans to play 47 minutes as a dummy half and he flexed his footy instincts in his try late of the Titans comeback, offering support for an attacking movement that he started...
Titans have had a bunch of lads step into dummy half late this season, even though Turner settled into a bench utility role for the last three games. Turner played 79mins at centre vs Dragons, then 22mins mainly at hooker against Knights before slotting in at hooker against Warriors. Earlier in the season Turner started three games in a row as a half and while he had two try assists, a linebreak and seven tackle busts, Titans lost all three games.
Turner also played nine games of Queensland Cup for Tweed Heads where he had six games at fullback, two games at centre and one game in the halves. Tweed won five of the six games with Turner at fullback and those six games saw Turner produce a try, five try assists, seven linebreaks and 35 tackle busts. There were flashes of Turner's class at centre for Tweed as those two games featured two try assists, five tackle busts and four offloads.
Across NRL and Q Cup Turner played fullback, centre, halves and hooker this year. Turner's pedigree ensures that he can execute these roles at a high level as the Hikurangi Stags junior from Northland was among the best Kiwi-NRL juniors prior to the pandemic. While cracking all sorts of NZRL representative teams, Turner also climbed up the Warriors depth rankings and a move to Titans saw him link up with older brother Lee at Tweed, as well as pushing for more regular game time in NRL.
Titans have a fabulous young fullback in Jayden Campbell and his presence bumps AJ Brimson into the halves. Toby Sexton spent most of this season as the starting halfback before Tannah Boyd got that gig. Add Turner into the mix and Titans have five lads competing for three spots. Kieran Foran's arrival next season adds further clutter to this group.
Turner is signed with Titans for next season and my Kiwi-NRL bias leads me to ponder how Turner connects with Aotearoa Kiwis veteran Foran. The way Turner finished this season signals his potential as he played whatever role Titans and Tweed required, adding his spice to those roles. Turner has the natural 'make things happen' style and another summer training block with Titans could see Turner demand a crack early next season.
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