Rotherham Titans will face another ferocious battle this Saturday when they take on local rivals Sheffield Tigers in round 10 of Nat 2 North; kick-off at Clifton Lane is 2pm.
Hot on the heels of Roth’s South Yorkshire battle at Abbeydale last week, where they ran out 39-14 winners over Sheffield RUFC; comes another huge South Yorkshire encounter where the Lane men will have to be at their best to come out on top.
The sides have only met twice before in the league, both of which took place towards the end of last season and both of which saw Rotherham secure bonus point victories.
However, in those games Tigers demonstrated what a good outfit they are, as they showed great resilience, a cutting edge in the backline and a powerful pack of forwards that competed for everything right up to the final whistle.
Furthermore, Tigers will come into this one with confidence following their bonus point win over Blaydon last time out and they’ll be eager to back that up with another win against the Titans.
In turn Rotherham are hoping to make it three consecutive wins following recent successes over Sheffield and Huddersfield; those wins came after suffering two disappointing back-to-back defeats to the top two sides in Sedgley Park and Fylde.
Going into the game Rotherham have made 3 changes to their starting XV, two of which come in the pack.
In the front row at tighthead prop Gareth Denman is given the nod over Danny Rylance, whilst in the back row Marcus Payne comes in for Rupert Kay, who took a knock during the game at Abbeydale.
The only change across the backline sees Corben Ollivent return at fly half, as Lloyd Hayes moves to outside centre for Jack Taylor, who also took a knock against Sheffield.
Speaking ahead of the match Titans Adam Byron said:
“We were delighted with the result in difficult conditions against Sheffield last week; it was very wet throughout the day and there was a bit of wind as well. It’s never easy for any side to play in those conditions, but it was a free-flowing game despite that and so to come away with five tries and 39 points was very pleasing.
“We knew Sheffield would come out of the blocks quickly, they are a team that likes to play with the ball in hand and they are a team that likes to have lots of possession and put you under pressure. However, we were confident in our defensive structure, particularly with the conditions as they were and we were happy for them to have the ball. They tried to play a lot of rugby but we were pleased with how we defended that and I think our physicality won the game in the end.
“We have another big game to contend with against Sheffield Tigers. It’s another South Yorkshire derby and we know what kind of test they will bring. They are coming here with a bit of confidence having had a good win against Blaydon.
“They’ll want to play a bit of rugby and we’ll need to be switched on from the first whistle and make sure we defend with aggression from the off. We’re expecting them to right in our faces from the start and we’ll need to meet that physicality head on, just like we did last week.
“Tigers will have their purple patches throughout the game and it will be important that we can ride those moments out. In Mark Ireland they have a very good player who has a big boot on him and they’ll look to play territory and to take the points when they’re on offer. So we’ll need to be disciplined and we’ll need to understand that if we give away penalties we’ll be punished in both territory and points.”
Titans: 15 Sam Veall, 14 Jack Hedley, 13 Lloyd Hayes, 12 Harry Dunne, 11 Luckas Sableman-Blue, 10 Corben Ollivent, 9 Sam Boxhall, 1 Charlie Capps, 2 Jack Bergmanas, 3 Gareth Denman, 4 Matt Challinor, 5 Theo Nwosu-Hope, 6 Callum Bustin, 7 Marcus Payne, 8 Zak Poole (Capt.).
Replacements: 16 Louis Inman, 17 Danny Rylance, 18 Alastair Donkor, 19 Cade Cambier, 20 Kai Ramrattan.
