Nottingham (30) vs Rotherham Titans (30) - Championship
Pre-Match Report
Titans seek elusive away win
Rotherham Titans make just two changes to the starting 15 that beat Bedford last time out, as they prepare for the difficult away challenge at Nottingham on Friday evening, kick off 7.45pm at Meadow Lane.
Coming in on the right wing and making his Championship debut for Rotherham is Tom Foden, he replaces Peter Homan. Foden’s inclusion sees Shane Monahan switch to the left flank. In the front row Ben Harris makes his first league start of the campaign to give the in form Jamie Kilbane a rest.
After sustaining two narrow away defeats this season Rotherham will endeavour to chalk up a long awaited victory on the road. However this will not be an easy task as Nottinghamare expected to be challenging at the very top end of the table, after finishing a respectable 5th last term.
The overall head to head between the clubs sees Rotherham hold a narrow 9-7 advantage, although the South Yorkshiremen have only tasted victory twice in Nottingham. The last time being back in March 2007 when tries from Jannie Bornman, Hendrie Fourie and Brian Tuohy saw them home by 27-8.
Titans head coach Andre Bester acknowledged the size of the task when saying, “Nottinghamare one of the top teams in the Championship and will provide us with a stern challenge. But we are starting to show the cohesion and progression through our processes and as a result we are confident going into theNottinghamgame.”
RotherhamTitans: 15 Stephen Hamilton, 14 Tom Foden, 13 Byron Godfrey, 12 Palepoi Nonu, 11 Shane Monahan, 10 Garry Law, 9 Matt Rhodes, 1 Ben Harris, 2 Ted Stagg, 3 Rob O’Donnell, 4 Neale Patrick, 5 Barney Maddison, 6 Robin Copeland, 7 Sean Dougall (Capt.), 8 Semisi Taulava
Replacements From: Dan Baines, Ben Hooper, Jamie Kilbane, Adrian Griffiths, Sam Dickinson, Jimmy Williams, Cliffie Hodgson, Carl Kirwan.
Match Report
Titans Battle Back To Share Spoils
Rotherham Titans ‘never say die’ attitude came to the fore once again as a spirited second half fight back saw them battle out a 30-30 draw away to Nottingham.
The loss of Neale Patrick and Rob O’Donnell to early injuries caused Titans unnecessary disruption and this was instrumental in the hosts taking first half control. However the Titans line out had been out of sync from the off and gave Nottingham impetus which allowed them to bring their lively, fast footed backs into play.
Indeed Rotherham trailed only by a single point (7-6), when tight head prop Rob O’Donnell left the field with a badly gashed face. Two Garry Law penalties to an Ayoola Erinle try converted by Kieran Hallett separated the two sides. Five minutes later and a nasty looking neck injury to Neale Patrick caused a lengthy delay as the medical people gave him treatment before taking him from the field on a stretcher and then onto hospital as a precaution.
In between the injuries Hallett extended the hosts advantage to 10-6 with a neatly taken penalty after Titans had infringed at the ruck. Whilst Rotherham were attempting to reorganise the hosts applied the pressure and frequently looked dangerous. Particularly threatening was full back David Jackson and ex England outside centre Ayoola Erinle, the latter showing a touch of class coupled with exceptional speed and intelligent running lines.
The Rotherham scrum was becoming under increasing pressure and the dominant hosts pack forced a penalty five minutes into injury time, which Hallett slotted over to make it 13-6. Law responded two minutes later with a penalty of his own to reduce the arrears to four points. Yet there was still time remaining for Rotherham to give a free kick away at the scrum. Nottingham took a quick tap and spread the ball quickly wide, Erinle made the break before feeding Jackson to race through for a converted try to make it 20-9 and bring the half to an end.
It went from bad to worse for Rotherham just 2 minutes after the restart, when two Titans players got in each others way and Jackson hacked on before collecting to gallop under the posts to make it 27-9.Rotherham needed a response quickly. This they got 3 minutes later when from a ruck inside the hosts 22 the ball was shipped to Pale Nonu. Nonu once again showed his impressive strength to break two tackles and then offload to the onrushing Shane Monahan who touched down under the posts for Law to convert.
Nottingham continued to edge matters, but midway through the half Andre Bester made his move with the bench. On came Baines, Kilbane, Dickinson and Williams in quick succession. The momentum of the match was about to take a dramatic shift, this despite another Hallett penalty extending Nottingham’s lead to 30-16.
Now it was Rotherham’s turn to apply the pressure and oh how they did! Suddenly they were dominating the set scrum and breaking the gain line at will. Nottingham were suddenly racking up the penalties and when referee Darren Gamage yellow carded lock Nic Rouse, Rotherham ruthlessly made the extra man count. A quick tap from a free kick close to the Nottingham line, saw Semisi Taulava crash through for his fourth try in five games. Law converted to reduce the arrears to 7 points.
Just three minutes later after more dominance from the Rotherham pack the ball arrived with Monahan. The Irish flyer cut inside nicely and used his physicality to break through two tackles before scoring near the posts. Law converted to incredibly level the scores and earn Rotherham a share of the spoils.
Post game a contented Andre Bester commented, “We showed a lot of character once again, but in the first half we again shot ourselves in the foot like we did against Bedford. We gave them opportunities, we gave them tries and made it nearly impossible for ourselves, but there’s so much character and determination in this squad of players and these people want to achieve something."
“The injuries we sustained early on in the match with Rob O’Donnell and Neale Patrick being down and out and away from the game caused us massive disruption. It also disrupted our planning for the second half because we had a plan to bring certain players on at certain times and suddenly we ran out of forwards. We had to bring two guys into the pack in the first half, whereas we would have unleashed everybody early in the second half and that made a big difference to us."
“We lacked intensity in the first half and the boys know that, but they worked very hard to get back into the game and I don’t think many teams could have come here tonight and have done what we did. In the second half to put 21 points on them and score three tries is an outstanding achievement."
“I said to the players at half time they needed to have belief, we gave them 20 points and our biggest issue in the first half was that we lost ball at line out time and we didn’t dominate the scrum."
“As a set up we are obliged to have a squad of players that can compete and sometimes we are going to find it tough when we come to these types of places. It’s easy to say maybe we should just pick a first 15, but over the run of the season it’s absolutely critical that all the players need to be part of the squad and we need to develop the players, including the fringe players into front line players. Because when we get the injuries we need to be able to cope."
“What did please me was the impact our bench had in the second half, it was great. Sam Dickinson was outstanding, Jamie Kilbane was outstanding and Dan Baines was outstanding. Then our line out and scrummaging started to immediately improve."
“The players once again demonstrated their character and spirit, they are a good bunch of people who want to achieve something and they take the lead themselves and believe. These players want to get somewhere and they want to be special.”
RotherhamTitans Scorers: Taulava (T), Monahan (2T), Law (3P,3C).
NottinghamScorers: Erinle (T), Jackson (2T), Hallett (3P,3C).
Referee: Darren Gamage
Att: 1308
RotherhamTitans: 15 Stephen Hamilton, 14 Tom Foden, 13 Byron Godfrey, 12 Palepoi Nonu, 11 Shane Monahan, 10 Garry Law, 9 Matt Rhodes, 1 Ben Harris, 2 Ted Stagg, 3 Rob O’Donnell, 4 Neale Patrick, 5 Barney Maddison, 6 Robin Copeland, 7 Sean Dougall (Capt.), 8 Semisi Taulava
Replacements: Dan Baines, Ben Hooper, Jamie Kilbane, Adrian Griffiths, Sam Dickinson, Jimmy Williams, Cliffie Hodgson.
Nottingham: 15 David Jackson, 14 Joe Cobden, 13 Ayoola Erinle, 12 Juan Pablo Socino, 11 Mike Penn, 10 Kieran Hallett, 9 Nathan Jones, 1 Ryan Bower, 2 Joe Duffey, 3 Ben Prescott, 4 Lee Morley, 5 Nic Rouse, 6 Craig Hammond (Capt.), 7 Tom Armes, 8 Alex Shaw.
Replacements: Jimmy Stevens, Matt Shields, Rupert Cooper, Jonny Baird, Finlay Barnham, Joe Munro, Dante Mama.
