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Gold Coast captain Scott Prince is not getting carried away with the Titans' opening 18-0 win over the Cowboys but relished their defensive performance.

Star recruit Jamal Idris' two-try debut for Gold Coast got the headlines but Titans captain Scott Prince was equally impressed by his team's defence in their 18-0 NRL win over North Queensland.

The Titans defence, bolstered by fellow big name recruits Nate Myles and Luke Douglas, kept the fancied but horribly error-prone Cowboys scoreless on their home ground Dairy Farmers Stadium for the first time since 2003.

For a team who collected the wooden spoon in 2011 after losing four of their first five matches, it was a both a great win and a big relief but Prince wasn't reading too much into it.

"It's just the first game, but it was positive defensively and I guess we were better in the conditions and able to get some chances and put some points on the board when we got those chances," said Prince.

"I thought our defence won it for us and it was good to get the monkey off our back."

High-profile signings in the summer have given the Titans their biggest forward pack since joining the competition and they dominated the Cowboys, tipped by many to be top-four contenders, in hot, humid conditions.

The Titans should have put more points on the fumbling Cowboys but coach John Cartwright wasn't too concerned.

"It was very difficult. As funny as it may sound it's very difficult to attack when you're right on your opposition's tryline," he said.

"You'd rather get the ball in a bit of space and they buy a little bit more time down there when they make a tackle."

One player who had no trouble finding the tryline was giant centre Idris, who scored twice in his Gold Coast debut.

But Cartwright said it's not just his try-scoring ability that will help the Coast in attack.

"He scored two tries and draws so many people to him whenever he's near the ball and guys like Princey and (William) Zillman and Jordan (Rankin) are really going to benefit from that," Cartwright said.

Young five-eighth Rankin, in just his 10th NRL match, set up a try and looked at home alongside experienced playmaker Prince.

But Cartwright said he is still learning the ropes and wouldn't put too much pressure on him.

"He's a work in progress and not just physically. He's still a boy really he's only 20 and I thought physically he aimed up, put his body on the line and made some very important tackles.

"He'll get better with the ball, that goes without saying but physically he was very good."

The Cowboys completed just 16 of their 37 sets (43 per cent) and made 26 errors to the Titans' 10.

"It was pretty awful, a pretty ugly performance all round really," said Cowboys coach Neil Henry.

"At 13 errors at halftime you would think that we wouldn't repeat that but we went one better so we're very disappointed."