NRL, NRL 2023, Sam Verrills, recruit watch, Gold Coast Titans
The NRL market is in full swing for 2023 with several stars changing clubs ahead of the new season.
NRL.com looks at the most important transfers and how your club will benefit from a star arrival.
Sam Verrills (Titans) Age: 24 Position they’ll fill: Hooker Contracted until: 2024 What Verrills will bring
Sam Verrills is moving north to the Gold Coast for a change of scenery after four seasons with the Roosters.
The arrival of Brandon Smith at Bondi left Verrills, a premiership winner at the club, with little choice but to move elsewhere if he wanted to remain a starting scrum-half.
At 24, Verrills experienced the highs and lows of rugby league, winning a title in his first year with the Tricolors before a season-ending knee injury in 2020.
He has two more injury-plagued seasons, but managed to stay on the park for the remaining 11 games of the year in 2022.
There is a lot of promise in Verrills, who showed last year he can have an impact on a team when he can put together plays.
Overall, the Roosters won 71% of the games when Verrills was on the field.
Sam Verrills is a key recruit for the Titans in 2023. ©Titans Media Why it will work
Verrills’ responsibility with the Titans will be different from his time with the Roosters and should help take his game to more of a leadership level.
He joins a club desperate to get back into the finals, a stark contrast to a star-studded club that allows him to do his part.
The Titans have lacked consistency at hook in recent years, with Erin Clark, Mitch Rein and Nathan Peats all sharing the duties, while Aaron Booth had a short four-game run before suffering a nasty knee injury has.
Verrills averaged 64 minutes per game in 2022 with his service from dummy half to prove the Titans halves and give the forward a platform to build on.
Defensively, he was also quite healthy and improved his efforts in 2021 by dropping his missed tally from 33 (14 games) to 25 (15 games), respectively.
The Titans were also 15th for dummy half runs last year and while Verrills is not a first-type hooker, he ran more hookers in his final season with the Roosters than his previous three with 39 yards per game.
Gold Coast’s usual style of attacking play should encourage Verrills to express himself more in this area.
“I like to run the ball and defend as much as I can as a hooker,” Verrills said after joining the Titans in November.
“I was very satisfied with my game last year, but there is always room for improvement.”
If Verrills can find his running game, not only he, but the Titans halves and side in general should benefit.
