Rotherham Titans first home game of the season on Saturday sees them host Yorkshire rivals Leeds Tykes in round 2 of National league 1; kick-off at Clifton Lane is 2pm.
The South Yorkshire side will go into the derby clash on the back of an impressive opening day win at Sale FC, where they ran in 6 tries to overcome a very good outfit 43-28.
The victory was fully deserved and Titans first at Heywood Road and that should give them a degree of confidence going forward.
Newly promoted Leeds however started their campaign with a tough encounter against one of the top sides in the division in Plymouth Albion.
Despite home advantage, Leeds caught Albion on a good day and suffered a 45-12 defeat, conceding 7 tries.
Consequently, Leeds will be determined to react quickly with a strong performance against the Titans.
Unsurprisingly this fixture is usually a spicy affair, as most derbies are, with the first league encounter taking place 31 years ago during the 1994/95 season, with Titans winning that day 17-8.
Notably the last time Leeds came to Clifton Lane was 2 seasons ago for a huge Nat 2 North promotion chasing encounter.
A bumper crowd saw both sides go at it with full force, before Rotherham eventually edged matters 32-26 and ultimately go on to lift the title.
However, the overall league head-to-head after 30 games sees the West Yorkshire side hold a 17-13 advantage and indeed have won 6 of the last 8 games.
All of that however will mean little when the two sides come face-to-face on Saturday.
Going into the game Rotherham have made 3 changes to their starting XV, two of which come in the forwards.
In the front row hooker Morgan Veness will be flanked again by Alastair Donkor at loosehead and Andrew Foster at tighthead.
The second row sees Frankie Gascoigne link-up with Curran Maguire who comes in for the injured Harry Gilson-Fox, whilst in the back row alongside John Okafor at blindside and Harry Newborn at openside, Callum Bustin comes in at number 8 for Ellis Thomas.
Along the backline, the consistent half back pairing of JB Bruzulier and Rob Povey continues, whilst in midfield Lloyd Hayes is joined by Travis Gordon, as Mitchell Lacey-Babalola moves out onto the wing for the injured Sinjin Broad.
On the other wing is Jackson Barling, with Isaac Shaw continuing at full back.
Looking ahead to the game Titans Harvey Biljon said:
“Going into a new campaign people always ask what my hopes and ambitions are for the season, but it’s important we don’t get ahead of ourselves, and we stay in the present.
“So, my answer will always be along the lines of, have a good training session on Tuesday, have a better one on Thursday and look forward to a big game on Saturday. That was our approach last week against Sale FC.
“Heywood Road is a great place to go to, so coming away with a win having scored 6 tries, with a couple of those coming from things we had been working on was very satisfying.
“I think the game gave us a platform to keep building, because it wasn’t perfect, but we’ll keep training, and we’ll try to replicate some of those moments or scenarios in training and hopefully we will see those improvements going forward, starting with the game against Leeds Tykes.
“Leeds had a difficult start last week against Plymouth, but I would disregard that result as it won’t have any bearing on today’s game; this is a Yorkshire derby and it’s going to be big.
“Leeds will have learned a lot from last week; they will be battle hardened and they will quickly understand what National 1 rugby is and I expect a reaction from them.
“For us it’s making sure we don’t get caught up in everything, and as we did when we got into that sticky patch against Sale last week, we need to stay focused on our preparation that we’ve put in during the week and transfer that into our performance.”
Titans: 15 Isaac Shaw, 14 Jackson Barling, 13 Lloyd Hayes, 12 Travis Gordon, 11 Mitchell Lacey-Babalola, 10 Rob Povey, 9 JB Bruzulier, 1 Alastair Donkor, 2 Morgan Veness, 3 Andrew Foster, 4 Frankie Gascoigne, 5 Curran Maguire, 6 John Okafor, 7 Harry Newborn (Capt.), 8 Callum Bustin.
Replacements: 16 Luke Cole, 17 Zach Toerien, 18 Xavier Valentine, 19 Fraser Hastie, 20 Will Metcalfe.
