Rotherham Titans will aim for a hat-trick of victories when they entertain National 1 league leaders Chinnor at Clifton Lane on Saturday; kick-off 2pm.
On the back of impressive victories over Sale FC and Loughborough Students, Rotherham go into this weekend’s encounter looking to register 3 league wins on the spin for the first time since April 2015.
However, Titans know their task won’t be an easy one as big-spending Chinnor have recruited well during the off season, which has seen them attract, amongst others, former Roth favourites from last term Caolan Ryan and Tom Burns.
Other former Titans who potentially could play a part on Saturday for Chinnor include Jack Ramshaw, George Oliver, Ricky Cano and Darren Oliver, all of whom will be given a warm welcome.
Furthermore Chinnor boast an impressive 100% away record this season having plotted victories over Plymouth Albion, Cambridge and Cinderford.
Going into the game Rotherham have made 3 changes to their starting XV which sees in the pack Jamie Ure come into the second row for the injured Dan Preston-Routledge and Luis Ball come into the back row for Zak Poole who drops to the bench. Along the backline Callum Irvine starts at full back as Alex Dolly moves to scrum half for Connor Dever.
Commenting ahead of the match Titans’ Joe Barker explained, “As league leaders, Chinnor will act as a barometer to measure how much improvement we’ve made as a newly formed squad and it will give us an opportunity to maintain our consistency.
“Chinnor are a strong side who are good up front with an effective set piece and as we know have a back line led by Caolan Ryan who we rate very highly, Caolan controls the game really well and he’ll be a definite threat. We’ll need to stop him if we’re going to have any kind of success.
“However, if we perform to the standards we believe are achievable by this squad, we always feel we can win any game of rugby. No one is going to roll over and give it to you on a plate though. We’ll need to win the set piece, look after the ball, control our discipline in defence and work hard for each other all over the pitch.
“If we can do that effectively we’ll give ourselves a decent chance.”
Titans: 15 Callum Irvine, 14 Henry Roberts, 13 Harry Dunne, 12 Ellis Abrahams, 11 Connor Field, 10 Joe Barker, 9 Alex Dolly, 1 Dan Richardson, 2 Ali Thomson, 3 Will Dennis, 4 Jamie Ure, 5 Tom Cotterill, 6 Luis Ball, 7 Eru Smith-Wano, 8 Seb Nagle-Taylor (Capt.).
Replacements: 16 Jack Bergmanas, 17 Rikki Stout, 18 Anton Petrowitsch, 19 Zak Poole, 20 Connor Dever.
