Rotherham Titans surprisingly suffered their third defeat of the season as they crashed to a 36-31 reversal to a spirited Huddersfield side at Lockwood Park.
Titans did manage to pick up two points for their efforts which keeps them in second place in the league. However, the South Yorkshire side will now need to regroup ahead of the visit of Harrogate to Clifton Lane this week.
Whilst it’s fair to say Rotherham endured a bad day at the office, Huddersfield fully deserved their win after a heroic performance on the day and although Titans scored as early as the second minute through centre Jamie Cooke, Huddersfield outplayed their Yorkshire rivals for much of the opening 40 minutes.
Indeed Huddersfield ran in four tries to secure the bonus point before half time through Callum Thompson, Nick Sharpe, Kian Stewart and Sam Nunn.
So delighted at securing the bonus point, Huddersfield’s head coach took delight in thumping out a tune on the away dug-out just to let everyone know how happy he was!
Rotherham’s other points in a lacklustre first half came from number 8 Kieran Curran as he dotted down from the tail of a powerful scrum close to the line.
Titans came out with more purpose after the break and looked more threatening than they had before.
Indeed within10 minutes of the re-start Titans crossed the whitewash twice through centre Harry Dunne who sneaked up the blindside to crash over and then winger George Tucker who finished-off in the corner after the ball was spread across the field through a number of hands.
This reduced the Titans deficit to 26-24 and most in the ground would have expected the South Yorkshire outfit to kick-on and secure the win.
However, Huddersfield were having none of that and to their credit extended their lead just before the hour mark when loosehead prop Callum Thompson crashed over from a catch and drive close to the line.
Back came Rotherham in what was now a thrilling encounter which had the bumper crowd roaring.
With just 8 minutes remaining and following some powerful work from the Titans pack, lock forward Lewis Allan collected the ball to bulldoze his way over. Joe Carlisle added the extras to level the scores at 31-31.
However, it wasn’t to be Roth’s day. With 3 minutes remaining Huddersfield took play up deep inside the 22 before second rower Nick Sharpe effectively used his bulk to crash over and give his side a stunning victory.
Speaking on the pitch following the full time whistle, a disappointed Adam Byron said:
“We are obviously frustrated and I’m upset for the boys in terms that it’s been a long hard slog. We have been doing exceptionally well with players coming into positions with a lack of rugby and performing every week, but today it was maybe one step too far.
“We have to learn from this; we have to learn that if we want to be a team that wants to win the league, we have to turn up every week and we have to be disciplined enough to be in the right frame of mind every week and we have to put in a performance every week.
“At this stage of the year Huddersfield had nothing to play for other than getting a big upset and that was their motivation and because we didn’t turn up, we didn’t put in a performance that was good enough to win and well done to them for getting the result.
“If we want to be a team that’s mid-table then you can turn up some weeks and not others, but we want more than that, we want to be a team that wins a league.
“So we have to be a team that turns up every time and that’s a hard ask, but that’s something we have to learn to do as a squad and that’s the step we’ll have to make next year if we are going to win the league.”
Referee: Ben Davis
Attendance: 498
Yellow Card: Ed Brown (Huddersfield)
Titans: Cooke (T), Curran (T), Dunne (T), Tucker (T), Allan (T), Carlisle (3C)
Huddersfield: Thompson (2T), Sharpe (2T), Stewart (T), Nunn (T), Milner (3C)
Titans: 15 Sam Veall, 14 Tom Lewis (Taylor 78), 13 Jamie Cooke, 12 Harry Dunne, 21 George Tucker, 10 Joe Carlisle, 9 Sam Boxhall (Fisher 68), 19 Tom Richardson, 2 Jack Bergmanas (Newborn 51), 27 Rikki Stout, 4 Theo Nwosu-Hope, 5 Lewis Allan, 6 Zak Poole (Capt.), 7 Keifer Laxton (Payne 45) (Boxhall 78), 8 Kieran Curran (Quigley 64).
Replacements: 16 Harry Newborn, 17 Colin Quigley, 18 Marcus Payne, 22 Olly Fisher, 20 Lewis Taylor.
Huddersfield: 15 Tom Hodson, 14 Kian Stewart, 13 Lewis Workman, 12 Will Milner, 11 Sam Nunn, 10 Matt Law, 9 Jonny Mason, 1 Callum Thompson, 2 Liam Stapley, 3 Jack Smith (Walker 39) (Smith 43), 4 Luke Pearson (Davis 39), 5 Nick Sharpe, 6 Harvey Keighley-Payne, 7 Lewis Bradley (Capt.), 8 Ed Brown.
Replacements: 16 Lewis Brook, 17 Toby Walker, 18 Leighton Davis, 21 Joe Potter, 20 Cameron Catleugh.
