Titans coach Justin Holbrook says his decision to bench David Fifita during his side's 18-4 loss to Panthers on Friday night was to maximise the backrower's "quality" rather than getting "gassed" on heavy minutes.


After testing in the centres last week, Holbrook again raised eyebrows with another move for the superstar forward by placing Fifita on the interchange to start the match, with Kevin Proctor coming in as the starter.


But the move failed to ignite, with Fifita seeing just 45 minutes of action and making just 64 run metres from eight carries, per NRL.com stats.

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