Rotherham Titans began their season in style as they outscored new boys to the division Billingham by 52-24 on a warm and sunny afternoon at Clifton Lane.
Titans’ eight tries came via Rupert Kay, Laurence Cowen-Leak, Jack Townend, Jack Bergmanas, Luke Cole, Tomasi Tanumi and a brace for Lloyd Hayes who also added 12 points from the tee.
It took Rotherham just 3 minutes to score their first points of the season, when flanker Rupert Kay collected a nice popped-pass from Jack Bergmanas before breaking through to side-step the fullback to dot down under the sticks.
Billingham however responded quickly and within 6 minutes scored a penalty and then went into the lead when centre Luke Wilson intercepted inside his own 22 and proceeded to gallop the length of the pitch to score.
With their enthusiasm in tact Rotherham mounted a blitz which saw them score three tries inside a 6-minute spell to give them a 28-10 lead and secure the try bonus point.
Firstly Laurence Cowen-Leak showed his power to smash his way over; he was followed by full back Jack Townend who finished off nicely after Lloyd Hayes had ghosted his way through the defence and hooker Jack Bergmanas dotted down from a catch and drive.
Again though Billingham demonstrated their eagerness to not roll over and they too scored a couple of quick tries before the half hour mark.
Fly half Peter Evans skilfully chipped through for Luke Wilson to collect for his second try under the posts and then adventurously from deep inside their own half Billingham played the ball across the backline allowing winger Joe Ross to race home from 60 metres.
The two quick-fire tries narrowed the visitor’s deficit to 28-24 and the possibility of a shock opening-day win was becoming a possibility. However, those points would be the last scored by Billingham!
Either side of half time Lloyd Hayes showed his class with a brace of dot downs to calm the home side’s nerves and two more tries were added when Luke Cole touched down from the tail of a maul and Gareth Denman found Tomasi Tanumi as an extra man out wide to finish things off.
All in all it was a good opening day effort from Rotherham and whilst there will always be things to work on, scoring 8 tries and 50 points is never considered a bad day at the office.
Speaking after the game Titans head coach, Gary Pearce, said:
“I think at times we got lulled in to trying to play a bit too much rugby and we made a too many errors for my liking, but we scored lots of tries, put 50 points on them and nilled them in the second half, so it’s not all bad.
“We were disappointed to give them some of their points because we are better than that, but credit to Billingham they never stopped coming at us.
“We scored some entertaining tries ourselves and we got the five points and that’s the main thing.
“We know next week at Wharfedale will be a different test; it’s always one of the toughest places to go and try and get a result and we’ll give them our upmost respect.”
Referee: Dave Charlton
Attendance: 250
Yellow Card: K Clark (Billingham)
Titans: Kay (T), Cowen-Leak (T), Townend (T), Bergmanas (T), Cole (T), Tanumi (T), Hayes (2T, 6C),
Billingham: Wilson (2T), Ross (T), Evans (P, 3C)
Titans: 15 Jack Townend, 14 Dan Rundle, 13 Harry Dunne (Milner 49), 28 Callum Bustin (Cowen-Leak 71), 11 Tomasi Tanumi, 10 Lloyd Hayes, 9 JB Bruzulier (Eissa 63), 1 Charlie Capps (Denman 68), 2 Jack Bergmanas (Cole 49), 3 Gareth Denman (Kivalu 40), 4 Matt Challinor, 5 Matt Smith (Dunne 65), 6 Rupert Kay (Okafor 40), 7 Laurence Cowen-Leak (Kay 66), 8 Zak Poole (Capt.).
Replacements: 16 Luke Cole, 17 Loma Kivalu, 25 John Okafor, 19 Kareem Eissa, 20 Will Milner.
Billingham: 15 Elliott Husband (Capt.), 14 Joe Ross, 13 Peter Youll (Groark 59), 12 Luke Wilson, 11 Jonny Horner, 10 Peter Evans, 9 Connor Foley (Heron 57), 1 Adam Brown (Clark 68), 2 Jordan Foulds (Graham 65), 3 Kieran Clark (Spoors 57), 4 Ben Walton, 5 Mike Walton, 6 Tom Campbell (Burns 49), 7 John Padley (Campbell 63), 8 Anthony Jackson.
Replacements: 16 Ed Graham, 17 Joe Spoors, 18 Dan Burns, 19 Sam Heron, 20 Louie Groark.
Photo Credit: Gareth Siddons