Rotherham Titans recovered from a slow start to eventually overcome a resilient Sheffield Tigers 41-22 on a bright but blustery afternoon at Dore Moor.
Titans outscored Tigers by 7 tries to 4 with Kieran Curran helping himself to a brace and one each for Sam Boxhall, Harry Newborn, Lloyd Hayes, Connor Field and George Tucker.
The home side started much the sharper as they no doubt looked to give their near-neighbours a bloody nose on this first competitive fixture between the sides.
Indeed, it took Tigers just 4 minutes to breach the Rotherham defence as hooker Louis Townsend broke off the tail of a maul to score the first try.
Titans did hit back shortly after when scrum half Sam Boxhall dotted down following a nice exchange of passes with Jamie Cooke; but Tigers soon restored their advantage when Townsend popped up again to dot down from a catch and drive close to the line.
On 25 minutes matters worsened for Rotherham as former player Jamie Broadley cut through to score a converted try to give Tigers a healthy 17-5 lead and send the Dore Moor crowd into raptures. Indeed the Tigers players on the field celebrated with equal gusto as they anticipated a huge shock was on the cards.
However, Titans eventually began to settle to their task and started to exert some control, all of which resulted in Kieran Curran crossing the whitewash twice before the break.
First he received a quick-tap from Sam Boxhall to barge his way over and then in the final play of the half and following a sustained period of pressure inside the Tigers 22, he received a nice inside pass from Joe Carlisle allowing him to charge through for a nice score to reduce the arrears to 17-15.
Whatever was said over the half time oranges certainly had a positive effect for the Titans, as within 18 minutes of the restart they ran in 4 further tries to effectively seal the game.
First up replacement hooker Harry Newborn showed good strength to muscle over following a number of phases in the 22.
Next a sweeping backs move which started in their own half saw the ball pass through many hands, before arriving with full back Sam Veall; he then ghosted through before popping a pass back inside for Lloyd Hayes to finish off.
Titans’ next try was a belter as skipper Zak Poole ripped the ball from Tigers on the edge of his own 22, before then charging downfield to take play up to the Tigers 10 metre line and then offloading to winger Connor Field to charge in to score under the posts.
The final try for Rotherham saw replacement winger George Tucker show tremendous determination as he burrowed his way over in the corner to end a period of total domination by the Clifton Lane men.
To be fair to the home side they never stopped battling and when replacement forward Sim Meek squeezed over late on to secure a bonus point, it was fair reward for the Tigers efforts on the day.
Speaking on the pitch post-game Titans Adam Byron said:
“We are really pleased with the result; these Yorkshire derbies are tough games and the South Yorkshire derbies are even tougher. As we’ve seen all season everyone wants to take the Rotherham scalp and you could see how much Tigers wanted it today.
“We go into the lion’s den every week and every week it’s a cup final and it’s a difficult to play cup finals on a weekly basis; no other club in this division has that to contend with, but the boys have done it again and we are really pleased with the performance.
“We probably let ourselves down a little bit in the opening 20 minutes; it’s wasn’t about being outplayed, it was more about our own discipline and decision making and how we managed the game.
“Then in the following 20 minutes we really got ourselves back into the match and we went in at half time just 2 points behind and then we were able to come out in the second half and really do a job.
“The boys are an intelligent group and there’s lots of experience in our dressing room and most of the time they don’t need me to tell them what to do; so our chat at half time was pretty easy and after the break they came out and reacted accordingly and that was very pleasing.”
Referee: Owen Taylor
Attendance: 452
Yellow Card: Richardson & Carlisle (Titans), Broadley (Tigers)
Titans: Curran (2T), Boxhall (T), Newborn (T), Field (T), Tucker (T), Hayes (T, 3C),
Sheffield Tigers: Townsend (2T), Broadley (T), Meek (T), Parkin (1C),
Titans: 15 Sam Veall, 14 Connor Field (Donkor 22), 13 Lloyd Hayes, 12 Harry Dunne, 11 Jamie Cooke (Tucker 49), 10 Joe Carlisle, 9 Sam Boxhall, 19 Tom Richardson (Field 32), 2 Jack Bergmanas (Newborn 29), 27 Rikki Stout (Quigley 67), 4 Theo Nwosu-Hope, 5 Lewis Allan, 6 Kieran Curran, 7 Marcus Payne (Williams 57), 8 Zak Poole (Capt.).
Replacements: 16 Harry Newborn, 17 Colin Quigley, 18 Alastair Donkor, 25 Matti Williams, 21 George Tucker.
Sheffield Tigers: 15 Sam Down, 14 Otis Floyd, 13 Jamie Broadley, 12 Sam Wager, 11 Chris Keetley (Nicholson 46) (Keetley 77), 10 Tom Parkin, 9 Ryan Holmes, 1 Will Bennett, 2 Louis Townsend, 3 Nick Bingham (McLaughlin 75), 4 Joe Fitzsimons, 5 Charlie Cone (Meek 48), 16 Connor Scott (Clark 77), 7 Jack Baldry (Monks 40), 8 Angus Hughes.
Replacements: 20 Lee Monks, 17 Sim Meek, 18 Cam McLaughlin, 19 Kieran Nicholson, 6 Freddie Clark.
Photo Credit: Roy France