Rotherham Titans put in a sterling performance before eventually going down 38-19 to a very good Rosslyn Park outfit at The Rock on the opening day of the season.
Park’s star-studded side boasted double figures of former Premiership players and could even afford to have a former England international sat on the bench, in prop forward Paul Doran-Jones.
So whilst the challenge was always going to be a tough one for the Titans, they can hold their heads high as they made the hosts graft hard for the victory, whilst playing some accomplished rugby themselves.
In an entertaining first half each side crossed the whitewash twice, with the hosts racing out of the blocks to dot down first on 6 minutes through number 8 Hugo Ellis.
However, Rotherham responded quickly and levelled matters four minutes later when Connor Dever fed Dan Leake who had drifted infield off his wing to break through, before finding the impressive Tom Bacon who showed good pace to run in and score next to the sticks.
Titans would have been disappointed to have worked such a fine try only to fall behind again just 2 minutes later when centre Joe Munroe eased through.
Undeterred though Rotherham continued to look bright in their work and a slick backs move just after the half hour mark resulted in Dan Leake racing down the left flank before cutting back inside to score near the posts for another impressive dot down.
Although fully deserving of being level at the break, a poor exit just after the restart from Rotherham saw them once again fall behind when full back Henry Robinson grabbed the host’s third try.
Further tries followed for Park through former Titans fly half Greg Lound and prop forward Stewart Maguire to seal the game. However, Titans kept battling and gained a late reward when centre Jamie Cooke barged his way over to seal an impressive personal performance.
Speaking afterwards, Titans Director of Rugby, Martin Jenkinson, was not too downhearted as he explained, “It’s strange to have just lost a game 38-19 and to be stood here thinking we’ve got massive positives out of it. I think today’s performance proved we can front-up to the top sides in the division and we have physicality in our squad.
“Our cause wasn’t helped in the second half with the injuries we picked up and we let ourselves down early in that period with our exit play.
“It was only a couple of poor exits in the second half that cost us dearly and overall we probably gave them three scores and we need to erase those kind of errors from our game. Moving forwards, if we can put that right we will get very different results.
“I’m quite encouraged; we made no secret of the fact that this is the last fixture in the league that we would have chosen as our first game and with that in mind I am looking forward to the rest of the season.
“We had lots of boys making their debuts and it will take a little bit of time for them to bed in and some players today got their first taste of National One rugby and on the back of that I think we can take lots of positives.
“There were some quality individual performances, but I thought Tom Bacon showed what a good player he is. He oozed class every time he got the ball and in everything he did. “
Referee: Karl Dickson
Attendance: 495
Yellow Card: Wilson (Titans)
Titans: Bacon (T), Leake (T), Cooke (T), Hollingsworth (2C)
Rosslyn Park: Ellis (T), Munro (T), Robinson (T), Maguire (T), Lound (T, 5C, P)
Titans: 15 Tom Bacon, 14 Ben Robbins, 13 Jamie Cooke, 12 Tom Bullough (Hollingsworth 58), 11 Dan Leake (Poole 68), 10 Sam Hollingsworth (Bunting 48), 9 Connor Dever, 1 Toby Williams (Whitfield 58), 2 Harry Newborn, 3 Will Dennis (R Ward 64), 4 Elliott Ward, 5 Kieran Frost, 6 Lewis Wilson, 7 Zak Poole (Capt.) (Maka 64) (Leake 77), 8 Anthony Maka (Laxton 58).
Replacements: 16 Agustin Defelitto, 17 Harry Whitfield, 18 Reece Ward, 19 Keifer Laxton, 20 Morgan Bunting.
Rosslyn Park: 15 Henry Robinson, 14 Nicholas Scott, 13 Henry Cheeseman (Edwards 58), 12 Joe Munro, 11 Craig Holland, 10 Greg Lound, 9 Dave Lewis (Gash 62), 1 Kyle Traynor (Maguire 62), 2 Karl Gibson (Ellis 64), 3 Stewart Maguire (Doran-Jones 40), 4 Sam Twomey, 5 Henry Spencer, 6 James Freeman (Laventure 64), 7 Arthur Ellis (Barnard 51) (Freeman 66), 8 Hugo Ellis.
Replacements: 16 Jack Barnard, 17 Paul Doran-Jones, 18 Dan Laventure, 19 Jack Gash, 20 Neville Edwards.
