Rotherham Titans suffered a disappointing 39-27 defeat away at Huddersfield on a cold afternoon at Lockwood Park.
Titans scored three tries through Rupert Kay, Zak Poole and Callum Busting, with Lloyd Hayes adding 12 points from the tee.
Rotherham for the second season running left Lockwood Park disappointed as Huddersfield demonstrated once again they are not a team to be underestimated at home.
Titans actually started the game much the brighter and only a determined defensive display from the hosts kept their line intact as the first quarter elapsed without score.
Will Milner and Lloyd Hayes then traded penalties before winger Kian Stewart dotted down in the corner for the first try of the game for Huddersfield.
Milner stretched Field’s advantage before the break with a penalty, but in the final play of the half and despite being reduced to 14 men due to Charlie Capps receiving a yellow card, Rotherham’s Rupert Kay crashed over the whitewash with great determination. Hayes’ conversion sent Roth in at the break trailing 13-10.
Inside 6 minutes of the restart Rotherham went ahead after a Lloyd Hayes penalty and a quick thinking try from skipper Zak Poole, who had his wits about him from a rapidly taken penalty to go over next to the posts for a converted try to make it 20-13.
However, within a 10 minute spell it all went horribly wrong for Rotherham as Huddersfield winger Kian Stewart helped himself to a hat-trick.
Suddenly Roth trailed 32-20 in a game they had enjoyed the better moments and they looked shell-shocked.
Seven minutes from time though Titans gave themselves some hope of a recovery when Callum Busting barged his way over for a converted try to reduced his side’s arrears to 32-27.
However, those hopes were finally dashed late on when Field’s other winger Finlay Stewart – brother of Kian – galloped home to seal a deserved win.
Rotherham will now have to quickly put their disappointment behind them and prepare for a huge South Yorkshire derby against Sheffield at Clifton Lane this Saturday.
Speaking after the match a disappointed Titans Gary Pearce said:
“We played all the rugby in the first half, but we were just playing in the middle of the field. They didn’t play much rugby or many phases, but in the second half they score three tries from three kicks which came out of nothing.
“We just played dumb in certain situations; our lads worked hard, but we just kept on making error after error and that’s just not good enough at this level. We did play some good stuff at times, but we have to keep hold of the ball and we didn’t, we just gave the ball away too easily.
“I can’t express how disappointed we are; I told the lads we have to front-up and be better than we were today. We’re not a bad side but we aren’t showing that right now.
“They get the ball and score from nothing, they didn’t even have to work for their tries; it’s not as though they have pounded us and they’ve come at us for 6 or 8 phases; no, we just let them score from one phase and we really can’t let that happen and we made too many individual errors.
“The scoreboard shows they got 39 point’s, they’re not a 39 point side against us. We get down there and put on lots of pressure and we have to earn our points, they didn’t have to do that for their points and that’s not good enough.
“We need to get back on the training ground and work that bit harder to get better as a squad, because at the minute it’s not very good.
“You sometimes have to hold your hand up; you put a Rotherham shirt on and you’ve got to be accountable and at the minute they are not accountable for the errors and we need to help them improve so we can cut down on them.”
Referee: Llyr Apgeraint-Roberts
Attendance: 437
Yellow Card: Capps (Titans)
Titans: Kay (T), Poole (T), Busting (T), Hayes (3C, 2P)
Huddersfield: K. Stewart (4T), F. Stewart (T), Milner (4C, 2P)
Titans: 15 Lloyd Hayes, 14 Sam Veall, 13 Tomasi Tanumi, 28 Callum Busting (Dunne 36), 11 Luckas Sableman-Blue (Richardson 36) (Sableman-Blue 45) (Ollivent 70), 10 Joe Carlisle, 9 Sam Boxhall, 1 Charlie Capps, 2 Jack Bergmanas (Richardson 75), 3 Gareth Denman (Rylance 30), 4 Matt Challinor, 5 Theo Nwosu-Hope (Cambier 75), 6 Marcus Payne (Busting 53), 7 Rupert Kay, 8 Zak Poole (Capt.).
Replacements: 16 Tom Richardson, 17 Danny Rylance, 18 Cade Cambier, 19 Harry Dunne, 22 Corban Ollivent.
Huddersfield: 15 Tom Hodson, 14 Kian Stewart (Law 72), 13 Lewis Workman, 12 Ed Barber, 11 Finlay Stewart, 10 Will Milner, 9 Joe Potter (Wilson 53), 1 Callum Thompson (Dawson 75), 2 Ethan Myers, 3 Andy Rollins, 4 Luke Pearson, 5 Eddie Brown, 6 Liam Parfitt (Stapley 70), 7 Lewis Bradley (Capt.), 8 Rob Jennings (Jones 48).
Replacements: 16 Alex Dawson, 19 Liam Stapley, 20 Matt Law, 21 Simon Wilson, 22 Tom Jones.
