Titans coach Neil Henry has conceded he may have to go looking for fresh troops with three players in doubt to face the Bulldogs next weekend after picking up injuries in the 19-14 loss to the Dragons on Saturday.
Although boosted by the return of Tyrone Roberts from a knee injury prior to kick-off the Titans had only one fit player on the bench at the end of 80 minutes while another, Leivaha Pulu, battled on gamely with a rib injury.
Hooker Daniel Mortimer suffered a hamstring injury that could sideline him for a fortnight, Eddy Pettybourne lasted just nine minutes before he suffered a compound fracture of his finger that may require follow-up surgery while rookie half Ashley Taylor was forced from the field in the final minute with concussion.
The Titans will welcome Greg Bird back into the mix after he served his one-game suspension on Saturday but Henry said the likes of Mortimer, Pettybourne and Pulu will all be in some doubt.
"Normally a hamstring is one to two weeks if it's a minor one," Henry said of the injury to Mortimer.
"Eddy's should settle pretty quickly but I don't know if he'll require surgery. I'd imagine he would but they seem to think it's in place and that's OK. We'll wait and see with Vaha, it's a rib cartilage type problem so they can hang around for a couple of weeks too. We might have to bring some new troops in."
As has been their downfall in recent weeks the Titans once again allowed the opposition to get a jump on them, the Dragons posting their first try in three weeks after eight minutes and scoring twice more before half-time.
Gold Coast kept the visitors to a solitary point in the second half but despite dominating territory and possession struggled to find a way through a determined Dragons defence.
While impressed with their ability to hold St George Illawarra out in the second stanza, Henry conceded that their habit for giving up starts is causing the Titans to get away from their attacking structures.
"You start to look and invent ways of trying to chase and create points when we're in the habit of conceding points," Henry said.
"That was a pretty good second half effort, pretty happy with our second half defensive effort and I suppose we are searching for that kind of consistency in our defence in the first half.
"We haven't been able to put that 80 minutes together yet. We're having lapses that are really costly in this competition.
"Every team can put together 50 or 60 minutes of defence, it's the best teams that put the 80 together. At the moment we're not up there, we're not in that league."
