Rotherham Titans put in a dominant display against an enterprising Sheffield side, running in 9 tries to register an impressive 61-14 win under the lights at Clifton Lane.
The player stealing the headlines for the second game in a row was Jackson Barling; Titans powerful winger helped himself to 4 tries, 3 of which came in the first half.
And although Sheffield scored the first points of the match through centre Will Smith, their lead lasted just 2 minutes.
In addition to Barling’s first half hat trick, back rower Fraser Hastie and scrum half Sinjin Broad were also on hand to inflict more pain on Titans near neighbours.
To be fair to the visitors though, they did have plenty of the ball during the opening 40 minutes and Rotherham had to dig deep on several occasions to keep them out.
This defensive effort will surely stand Rotherham in good stead for when the season starts at Sale FC in a couple of weeks’ time.
The second half saw the visitors score first again; this time it was Titans old boy Zak Poole. The powerful number 8 secured his usual try at Clifton Lane.
Thereafter however Sheffield had little to celebrate as Rotherham romped away with it.
Just after the hour mark Barling raced in for his fourth try, before tries from Lacey-Babalola, Newborn and tight head prop Valentine in the corner crowned an excellent night’s work.
Speaking after the game Titans Harvey Biljon reflected:
“It was the exactly the kind of test our players needed; Sheffield were not going to give anything up the whole game.
“You could see their intention in a couple of areas; their attack continued to play and that was great preparation for us because we had some real long defensive sets tonight and that will put us in good stead for the season.
“The other thing I’m really pleased about is we earned three or four scores just from our defence and that was really encouraging with all the work we have put in over the last couple of weeks in that area.
“However, we will go away and look at ourselves in a couple of areas. I think at times our set piece was a little bit scrappy which didn’t give us that opportunity to get playing; especially when you consider in the first half we hardly had any ball.
“We had some scores off defence, but we only had one chance where we had territory and possession, and we took away a score which was good.
“In the second half I was really impressed overall and when our bench came on there was no disruption in the flow of our game and that’s important that everyone had an understanding in what we were trying to achieve.
“I think what these games have shown over the last couple of weeks is that our preparation in pre-season has been in a good place.
“And although it’s early days with lots of growth still to come, I think it gives us real headaches around selection because of the number of players that are putting their hands up.”
Titans: Barling (4T), Hastie (T), Broad (T), Lacey-Babalola (T), Newborn (T), Valentine (T), Hayes (5C), Povey (2C), Cummins (1C)
Sheffield: Smith (T), Poole (T), Fisher (2C)
Referee: Jack Moorhouse
Assistant Referees: Ian Farrell & James Gray
Titans: 15 Isaac Shaw, 14 Jackson Barling, 13 Lloyd Hayes, 12 Mitchell Lacey-Babalola, 11 James Norman, 10 Rob Povey, 9 Sinjin Broad, 1 Alastair Donkor, 2 Morgan Veness, 3 Andrew Foster, 4 Frankie Gascoigne, 5 Cory Teague ©, 6 Fraser Hastie, 7 Harry Newborn, 8 Callum Bustin.
Replacements: 16 Luke Cole, 17 Zach Toerien, 18 Xavier Valentine, 19 Harry Gilson-Fox, 20 Travis Gordon, 21 John Okafor, 22 JB Bruzulier, 23 Kieran O’Meara, 24 Corben Ollivent, 25 Will Baker, 26 Joe Cummins.
Sheffield: 15 George Castledine, 14 Cameron Catleugh, 13 Matthew Drennan, 12 Will Smith, 11 Will Burden, 10 Callum Posa, 9 Elliot Fisher, 1 Ben Whitney, 2 Rhodri Campbell, 3 George Rogers, 4 Archie Crapper, 5 Dom Parsons, 6 Alex Fawdry, 7 Josh Redfern, 8 Zak Poole.
Replacements: 16 Will Archer, 17 Alex Reid, 18 Aaron Lonsdale, 19 Felix Crapper, 20 Matthew Adcock, 21 Lewis Taylor, 22 James Flint, 23 Jack Dawson.
