Rotherham Titans shook off the cobwebs to run out impressive 35-27 winners over a spirited Bishop’s Stortford side on a cool afternoon at Silver Leys.
This was Titans first game for a month, and the game turned out to be every bit as tough as expected, against one of the form teams in the division.
The sides shared 8 tries in this entertaining encounter with Titans scores coming from Harry Gilson-Fox, Jackson Barling, Morgan Veness and Lloyd Hayes, with the latter also adding 15 points from the tee.
The bonus point win keeps Rotherham in contention at the business end of the table and no doubt they would have been delighted to return home with a full allocation of points.
The match itself, despite the long lay-off for Rotherham, saw the South Yorkshire side start much the brighter, racing into a 13-0 lead inside the opening 20 minutes.
All the points came from Lloyd Hayes; the powerful centre bulldozed his way over for the first try and added the conversion and 2 further penalties.
Bishop’s responded when Tom Hitchcock slipped a nice pass to blindside forward Harrison Langworthy who showed terrific pace to skip through and score near the posts for a converted try.
Lloyd Hayes and Chris Bolton then traded penalties before Rotherham grabbed their second try when Harry Gilson-Fox dived over after a period of forward pressure.
Just before half time Bishop’s laid siege to the Rotherham line, but crucially for them the visitors managed to repel the threat and go in at the break leading 23-10.
Titans started the first half brighter, but it was Bishop’s who started the second half much the better as their intensity levels increased.
Inside ten minutes Bishop’s scored two tries through back rower and captain Ollie Jones and centre Jack Biard with Chris Bolton converting the former to reduce their arrears to a single point.
In what was now an absorbing contest it was Rotherham that scored next when powerful winger Jackson Barling barged through to dot down in the corner following a lovely long miss-pass from JB Bruzulier. The touchline conversion from Hayes narrowly missed its target.
Five minutes later and Bishop’s had their bonus point try when following a line-out close to the line hooker Isaac Bell downed from the back of a maul. The conversion from out wide missed leaving Titans with the narrowest of leads at 28-27.
Ten minutes from time Rotherham gave themselves some breathing space when hooker Morgan Veness scored off the back of a maul and Hayes converted to stretch the lead to 8 points.
Bishop’s had a late penalty to nab a second bonus point, but Bolton’s efforts missed its target and the game was up.
Commenting on the pitch afterwards a delighted Harvey Biljon explained:
“I just said to the players not to underestimate how important this result is, especially coming away from home to Bishop’s Stortford who were clearly very emotionally up for the game.
“You can see from the introduction of new players into their squad and the results they’ve been getting of late, it was always going to be a challenge.
“I just want to highlight that we haven’t played for 4-weeks and so for how the players trained this week and the way they’ve turned up today was outstanding. I’m not just talking about the 20 here today, but also about the other 15 players that helped prepare the team, because that makes a huge difference.
“You could see the threat that Bishop’s Stortford brought, they were always going to challenge us across the pitch both at set piece and out wide in particular. I was impressed with how we adapted defensively and how we changed our kick strategy to nullify the kicking game they were trying to impose on us.
“Then it was about being able to take our opportunities and when we found field position, except on one occasion, we took our scores.
“They were also some big moments; just before half time holding them out on our try line and then coming into those last five minutes holding them out on our tryline again; that was very good from our players.”
Titans: Gilson-Fox (T), Barling (T), Veness (T), Hayes, (T, 3C, 3P)
Bishop's Stortford: Langworthy (T), Jones (T), Biard (T), Bell (T), Bolton (2C, 1P)
Yellow Card: Langworthy (Bishop’s Stortford)
Referee: Alex Powdrell
Assistant Referees: Michael Maple & Paul Clayton
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 (48), 2 Morgan Veness (Cole 70), 3 Andrew Foster (Valentine 69), 4 Frankie Gascoigne (Maguire 66), 5 Harry Gilson-Fox, 6 John Okafor, 7 Harry Newborn (Capt.), 8 Jack Baldry.
Replacements: 16 Luke Cole, 17 Zach Toerien, 18 Xavier Valentine, 19 Curran Maguire, 20 Sinjin Broad.
Bishop’s Stortford: 15 Jake Morris, 14 Alex Gilham, 13 Jack Biard, 12 Tom Hitchcock (Pope 70), 11 Seva Kava, 10 David Hayes (Johal 75), 9 Chris Bolton, 1 Tristan Smith (Ducci 51), 2 Isaac Bell, 3 Toby Hill, 4 Hamish Ferguson, 5 Kennedy Sylvester (Kiff 41), 6 Harrison Langworthy, 7 Ollie Jones (Capt.), 8 Reggie Hammick (Rayment 41).
Replacements: 16 Alex Rayment, 17 Damien Ducci, 18 Fraizer Kiff, 19 Jai Johal, 20 Austin Pope.
