Rotherham Titans ran out worthy 33-28 winners over a tenacious Chester side on a bright, but blustery afternoon at Clifton Lane.
Titans outscored their Cheshire based opponents by five tries to four to maintain an interest in taking the top spot come mid-May.
Rotherham’s points came from touch downs via Jamie Cooke, George Tucker, Harry Dunne, Lloyd Hayes and a penalty try, with 6 points coming from the boot of fly half Joe Carlisle.
Despite a horrendous list of injuries in the Titans pack, which include Charlie Capps, Colin Quigley, Matt Challinor, Matt Smith, Lewis Wilson, Callum Bustin and Kieran Curran, the South Yorkshire side showed great resilience to maintain their unbeaten record at Clifton Lane this season.
However, Roth started slowly out of the blocks and it was Chester who scored first when fly half Liam Reeve knocked over a penalty on 12 minutes, before moments later winger Kier Gordon ran in too easily to touch down in the corner to give his side an early 8-0 lead.
As the first quarter came to a close Roth finally got themselves on the board, when a scrum 5 metres from the line was collapsed by Chester, it left referee Daniel Woods with no option but to award Titans a penalty try.
Titans’ joy however was short-lived as the injury curse struck again and again it was a forward! This time it was Matti Williams who left the field with what appeared to be a neck injury.
Nevertheless the home side quickly regrouped and scored their second try within minutes.
From a scrum on halfway next to the main stand, scrum half Sam Boxhall found Joe Carlisle who flung out a beautiful long miss-pass to Harry Dunne before he drew the last defender to send in winger Jamie Cooke for a really nice score.
Rotherham were now rampant and their third try followed quickly, when after a period of possession inside the Chester 22 the ball was spread across the field and into the hands of full back George Tucker who found a gap in the defence to race through.
The bonus point try for Rotherham came just before half time when Connor Field made good ground towards the line, which allowed an alert Harry Dunne to nip in and dive over for a simple score.
As the sides went in at the break, Rotherham would have been pleased with their 28-8 lead and maybe they thought job done.
However, another slow start to the half saw Chester exploit some errors from the home side and within 8 minutes they crossed the whitewash twice through back rower George Baxter and full back Gethin Long to reduce their arrears to 28-18.
The nerves of the home side were calmed just after the hour mark when Lloyd Hayes cut back inside to score Roth’s fifth try following some good powerful work down the left flank from Jamie Cooke.
However, those nerves were jangling again late on after replacement back rower Sam Farrar went over for Chester on 74 minutes for a converted try and Liam Reeve added a penalty as the game went into injury time.
Thankfully for the home side they managed the game out well and held on for a deserved win.
The two sides will have another go at each other next week as the original game in Chester was postponed due to Covid earlier in the season.
Commenting after the match Titans’ Adam Byron said:
“We came into the game wanting five points and that’s what we’ve come away with; so we are pleased with that aspect of the match.
“However, we have 8 forwards out now after today’s game and that obviously will make any teams task that little bit more difficult; but we have to give credit to the boys who came in and put in a great shift.
“We started the game off slowly for some reason, but something seemed to change after about 20 minutes; although we had created a couple of chances early on, we seemed to really turn the screw from the mid-point of the first 40.
“I was a little bit frustrated with how we came out in the second half and again we seemed to struggle a little bit in terms of putting in a full 80-minute performance, but that is something we can work on going forward.
“We are still in the fight for promotion and we’ll continue to give everything as we pursue our ambitions.”
Referee: Daniel Woods
Attendance: 364
Yellow Card: Furnival (Chester)
Titans: Cooke (T), Tucker (T), Dunne (T), Hayes (T), Penalty Try, Carlisle (3C)
Chester: Gordon (T), Baxter (T), Long (T), Farrar (T), Reeve (2P, 1C)
Titans: 21 George Tucker, 14 Connor Field (Veall 70), 13 Lloyd Hayes, 12 Harry Dunne, 11 Jamie Cooke, 10 Joe Carlisle, 9 Sam Boxhall, 28 Alastair Donkor (Richardson 40), 2 Jack Bergmanas, 27 Rikki Stout, 4 Theo Nwosu-Hope, 5 Lewis Allan, 6 Keifer Laxton, 7 Matti Williams (H. Williams 21), 8 Zak Poole (Capt.).
Replacements: 16 Harry Newborn, 22 Olly Fisher, 18 Harry Williams, 19 Tom Richardson, 20 Sam Veall.
Chester: 15 Gethin Long, 14 Jonny Roberts (Parry 20), 13 Ben Ivory, 12 Tom Scott, 11 Kier Gordon, 10 Liam Reeve, 9 Tom Holloway (Malik 61), 1 Tom Furnival (Roberts 28), 2 Scott Robson (Woods 60), 3 Wade Williams (Furnival 33) (Williams 60), 4 Harry Wilkinson (Capt.) (Spalding 40), 5 James Lloyd, 6 George Baxter (Spalding 46), 7 Sam Brearey, 8 David Ford.
Replacements: 17 Rhodri Parry, 20 Joshua Woods, 18 George Spalding, 19 Sam Farrar, 22 Oscar Malik.
Photo Credit: Gareth Siddons