Rotherham Titans maintained their place at the top of National 1 with a well-deserved 47-12 win over Dings Crusaders on a bright, but cold afternoon at Clifton Lane.
Rotherham outscored Dings by 7 tries to 2 with dot down from Isaac Shaw, James Norman, Travis Gordon, Mitchell Lacey-Babalola, Sinjin Broad and a brace for Lloyd Hayes, with the latter also adding 12 points from the tee.
Most of the action and try-scoring came in a frenetic first half as Rotherham raced out of the blocks against a Dings side that had just 5 starters from the previous fixture at Shaftesbury Park earlier in the season.
Rotherham wasted little time in laying down a marker in this one, as inside the opening 6 minutes they crossed the line twice as centre Lloyd Hayes helped himself to a quick-fire brace.
The first came after a long miss-pass from JB Bruzulier was collected by Mitchell Lacey-Babalola; he offloaded to Travis Gordon who in turn managed to pop a short pass to Hayes for him to score in the corner. Hayes dotted down again moments later following an interception.
Titans had their third score when this time Hayes as the provider found Isaac Shaw with a miss-pass to send him in on the stands side corner.
Dings as expected mounted a response as their adventurous style enabled scrum half Matt Jones to cross the whitewash for an unconverted try.
Rotherham however soon extended their advantage and bagged the bonus point try when another Hayes pass arrived with James Norman; the speedy winger showed impressive footwork to step back inside and score close to the sticks.
Back came Dings and this time it was powerful work from their pack that saw hooker Sam Cantwell dot down from the tail of a catch and drive.
Any nerves Rotherham may have had were dispelled just before half time when a lovely interchange of passes between Mitchell Lacey-Babalola and Travis Gordon resulted in a marvellous try for the latter and with Hayes nailing the conversion from out wide Titans went in at the break leading 33-12.
The second half was unable to match up to the thriller of the first 40 and indeed it wasn’t until the game went into injury time that the next score arrived.
When it did it was for the Titans as John Okafor showed good strength bounce off the Dings defence before flipping a short pass to Lacey-Babalola on the wing for the easiest of scores.
There was still time for one final try and again it came for the home side when full back Isaac Shaw produced a lovely weighted angled grubber infield for Sinjin Broad to collect and race in from 25 metres for a fitting finale.
Reflecting afterwards Titans Harvey Biljon said:
“I’m impressed that we have another 5-point victory at home, I think we showed some real moments of class in difficult conditions which is very good.
“Dings came at us and probably played an uncharacteristic way a lot of the time which we then had to adapt to, in terms of how they were trying to attack. They clearly came with the ambition of trying to get the try bonus point.
“There were lots of moments where people were throwing offloads and long miss-passes and sometimes they come off and sometimes they don’t; but they were coming off today and we were having to stay in some long defensive sets and that’s good for us as preparation as we continue with the season.”
Titans: Shaw (T), Norman (T), Gordon (T), Lacey-Babalola (T), Broad (T), Hayes (2T, 6C)
Dings Crusaders: Jones (T), Cantwell (T), Boulton (1C)
Yellow Card: Rutherford (Titans), Stanley (Dings)
Referee: Owen Taylor
Assistant Referees: Simon Williams & Jason Garrick
Titans: 15 Isaac Shaw, 14 James Norman, 13 Lloyd Hayes, 12 Travis Gordon (Capt.), 11 Mitchell Lacey-Babalola, 10 Harris Rutherford, 9 JB Bruzulier (Broad 50), 1 Zach Toerien (Donkor 45), 2 Morgan Veness (Cole 57), 3 Tom Bairstow (Foster 50), 4 Frankie Gascoigne (Newborn 45), 5 Curran Maguire, 6 John Okafor, 7 Jack Baldry, 8 Callum Bustin.
Replacements: 16 Luke Cole, 17 Alastair Donkor, 18 Andrew Foster, 19 Harry Newborn, 20 Sinjin Broad.
Dings Crusaders: 15 Tommy Foot, 14 Sol Taufa (Ly 48), 13 Harry Tarling, 12 Greg Welling (Lloyd 58), 11 Harry Rowson, 10 George Boulton (Capt.), 9 Matt Jones (Knight 48), 1 Archie Stanley, 2 Sam Cantwell (Bonello 76), 3 Brian Ncube (Welling 70), 4 Will Thompson, 5 Alex Bilton, 6 Matt Bennett, 7 Josh Carr (Hales 76), 8 Callum O’Donnell.
Replacements: 16 Caleb Bonello, 17 Josh Lloyd, 18 Sam Hales, 19 Tom Knight, 20 Omar Ly.
