Rotherham Titans will look to build on their impressive victory over Caldy last week when they welcome Cinderford to Clifton Lane on Saturday for what is expected to be a tough examination; kick-off is 2pm.
Titans were made to dig deep in the north west last time out as Caldy pushed them all the way and Rotherham expect this week’s test from Cinderford to be no different.
Despite Cinderford going down to Bishop’s Stortford last time out, in the month of November a draw against top-of-the-table Blackheath and a 38-31 win at Clady, where they came back from 31-0 down, show what a good side they are.
Indeed, having won only one game fewer than Rotherham and being just 4 points behind, the South Yorkshire outfit will not underestimate their opponents.
Going into the game Rotherham make 2 changes to their starting XV, both of which come in the forwards. Rikki Stout comes in at tight head prop for Will Dennis and at openside Eru Smith-Wano gets the nod over Zak Poole; both Dennis and Poole drop onto the bench and will no doubt make an impact when introduced.
Speaking ahead of the match Titans’ Joe Barker explained, “The boys showed fantastic strength of character last week against Caldy and they’ll need to replicate that against a very good Cinderford side that have recently drawn against top-of-the-table Blackheath.
“Cinderford are a big, physical team who like to play a direct style of rugby. They have some effective kickers who can put them into good field position, they’ve got a strong pack of forwards who try to dominate and they’ve got some direct runners in midfield to get them front-foot ball.
“So we’ll have to front up and stop that because once they get going they take some stopping and they showed that against Caldy where they scored 38 points in one half to win the game. We understand the threats they’ll pose and we won’t underestimate or take them lightly.”
Titans: 15 Callum Irvine, 14 Dan Leake, 13 Harry Dunne, 12 Ellis Abrahams, 11 Connor Field, 10 Joe Barker, 9 Alex Dolly, 1 Dan Richardson, 2 Ali Thomson, 3 Rikki Stout, 4 Dan Preston-Routledge, 5 Jamie Ure, 6 Luis Ball, 7 Smith-Wano, 8 Seb Nagle-Taylor (Capt.).
Replacements: 16 Jack Bergmanas, 17 Will Dennis, 18 Tom Cotterill, 19 Zak Poole, 20 Connor Dever.
