'There's going to be pain' for Titans in 2026: Hannay

But the Sharks brought the Titans careening back to earth on Saturday night and delivered Hannay a brutal reality check in his first game as a full-time NRL head coach.

Back-to-back preliminary finalists Cronulla scored in their first set with the ball and never looked back, beating their rivals physically and leaving the Titans to rue some poor fundamental errors.

Most notably, the Titans turned over possession when no player made it to dummy-half during a first-half attacking raid deep in Sharks territory.

"Physically, we were beaten to the punch," Hannay said.

"When we were under pressure, some bad habits popped up."

Hannay is the Titans' fifth full-time head coach in the past 10 seasons and in that time the club has played finals just once, when they sneaked into eighth spot with a 10-14 record in 2021.

The Titans last finished a regular season with a winning record in 2010. Every other NRL team has posted one since then bar the Dolphins, who entered the competition in 2023.

No result against the Sharks could have discouraged Hannay on his mission to revitalise the long-time underachievers.

"Win or lose tonight, tonight wasn't going to define us this year," he said.

"I know this playing group are capable of better, but I've also said to them, there's going to be pain.

"You don't know when it's going to present, but there's going to be pain for us this year. We're on a journey here.

"I don't for one moment accept the performance or the result, it doesn't sit well with me or the players at all, but the reality is, we're going to have nights like tonight. Our response to nights like that is probably more important than anything."

Hannay said the first step of that response would involve examining his first loss as Titans coach ahead of next weekend's clash with the Dolphins.

"I'm not one to dwell so we won't dwell on it but you also can't ignore it," he said.

"We'll go through it, take out of it what we have to, and respond."