Rotherham Titans returned to the summit of National 1 with a convincing 54-0 win over a hard-working Clifton RFC side on a yielding surface at Clifton Lane.
Titans ran in 8 unanswered tries with James Norman and Morgan Veness grabbing a brace, whilst Isaac Shaw, Zach Toerien, Will Metcalfe and Callum Bustin also crossed the whitewash, with Lloyd Hayes adding 14 points from the tee.
Bustin’s try was his 52nd for Rotherham and with that milestone he is elevated as the Club’s all-time leading try-scorer, taking him one ahead of former club captain Zak Poole.
Titans started quickly in the testing conditions as they raced into a 14-0 lead inside the opening 10 minutes.
Winger James Norman charged through to score near the corner for the first, whilst full back Isaac Shaw dotted down moments later after receiving a long miss-pass from Lloyd Hayes.
However, despite Rotherham dominating much of what followed, they had to wait until five minutes before half time for their next score. This arrived when loosehead prop Zach Toerien powered his way over.
In the final play of the half Rotherham wrapped up the bonus point when scrum half Will Metcalfe was on hand to finish off after a couple of offloads in the build-up created an overlap.
The second half followed a similar pattern to the first with the home side enjoying lots of territory and possession.
Inside the opening ten minutes of the second half the moment finally came for Callum Bustin as he received a short pass to break through and score under the posts for his club-record try.
Hooker Morgan Veness then chipped in with a brace as he dotted down from the tail of two powerful driving mauls, before James Norman wrapped things up late on with his second and Titans eighth try when he finished off in the corner after the ball was spread smartly across the full width of the pitch.
The result and performance were impressive in extremely testing conditions and it lifts Rotherham to the top of the league, just a single point ahead of Plymouth Albion in this tightest of divisions.
Reflecting afterwards Titans Harvey Biljon said:
“That for me was a very impressive result; we came up against a team that knew they’d dropped into the relegation zone and they were always going to turn up and there was going to be emotion in their group.
“We’ve had a huge amount of adversity, everyone knows about the weather, and we’ve had to be at different training venues just to try and get some sort of preparation in.
“On Thursday we had to manufacture training on the side of our pitch to try and save it for today and the amount of effort that everyone has given to get the game on today is massively appreciated.
“When you’re playing in conditions like these it’s always going to be tough and for us to be as disciplined as we were and to come away with a result like that was very impressive.
“I spoke last week about our group showing some control and again they’ve shown that control and maturity today.
“It’s not often you get to nil a team and that effort to do so was epitomised late on when our defensive set went on for three minutes. That’s tough going and it was impressive how we remained physical right until the end.
“And just finally to say it’s great for Callum Bustin that he’s now the club’s leading try scorer; that’s special and some achievement; let’s hope he can keep that going.”
Titans: Norman (2T), Veness (2T), Shaw (T), Toerien (T), Metcalfe (T), Bustin (T), Hayes (7C)
Clifton:
Yellow Card: Cano (Clifton)
Referee: Jack Moorhouse
Assistant Referees: Richard Arthur & Tom Doig
Titans: 15 Isaac Shaw, 14 James Norman, 13 Lloyd Hayes, 12 Travis Gordon (Capt.) (Bruzulier 60), 11 Mitchell Lacey-Babalola, 10 Rob Povey, 9 Will Metcalfe, 1 Zach Toerien (Donkor 55), 2 Morgan Veness, 3 Xavier Valentine (Foster 66), 4 Frankie Gascoigne (Okafor 50), 5 Harry Gilson-Fox (Cole 55), 6 Curran Maguire, 7 Jack Baldry, 8 Callum Bustin.
Replacements: 16 Luke Cole, 17 Alastair Donkor, 18 Andrew Foster, 19 John Okafor, 20 JB Bruzulier.
Clifton: 15 Harry Johnson, 14 Max McCarthy, 13 Zak Hamid, 12 Matt Smith, 11 Jack Perrins, 10 Ollie Milner, 9 Mitch Spencer (Spragg 57), 1 Ricky Cano (Buckley 48), 2 Tom Hatch (Anderson 57), 3 Armani Symonds, 4 Shay Sainsbury, 5 Dan Owen, 6 Toby Hutchinson (Capt.) (Hayes 21), 7 Jack Churchill (Thomas 64), 8 Oliver Stirling.
Replacements: 16 Jake Buckley, 17 Tom Anderson, 18 Josh Hayes, 19 Conor Thomas, 20 Ollie Spragg.
Photo: Gareth Lyons