Rotherham Titans endured a bad day at the office, crashing to their heaviest defeat of the season as Sale FC ran in 7 tries to run away 47-7 winners on one of the heaviest pitches Titans are likely to play on this term.
The result leaves Rotherham 9 points adrift of safety and their nearest rivals Birmingham Moseley, who visit Clifton Lane next month, in what promises to be a vitally important game.
In the meantime, as the squad breaks up for the Christmas holidays, this final game of 2019 will be one they’ll want to forget about quickly.
Right from the start when Rotherham conceded in the second minute through former Titan Fergus Mulchrone, the writing was on the wall. Three further first half tries followed to send Titans in at the break 28-0 down.
The second half was better for the South Yorkshire side, but nothing to boast about as they conceded another three tries.
Titans only points of the game came at the end as centre Harry Dunne intercepted before running in to dot down under the sticks.
Commenting post game a visibly disappointed Matt Smith explained, “I thought we let ourselves down massively! Once again we’ve had a great training week and it’s come to the game and we’ve just not put anything on the pitch that we’ve done in the week.
“At times we just had brain explosions, people not sticking to what we want them to do and then just the amount of errors in numerous different positions.
“Whether that be a line out throw or a call, whether it’s being offside in midfield for no reason and under no pressure or whether it be in attack when we’ve actually got a bit of pressure on them and then we try doing it on our own and get turned over. We are just killing ourselves.
“In the first half all their tries came from everything that we did wrong; Sale didn’t have to do anything to get them and that’s where we are as a group at the moment.
“This is a good league and when you’re making as many errors as we are, you don’t deserve to win a game of rugby.”
Referee: Llyr ApGeraint-Roberts
Attendance: 729
Yellow Card: Chris Johnson (Sale FC)
Titans: Dunne (T), Dever (1C)
Sale FC: Brady (2T), Mulchrone (T), Bingham (T), Talaese (T), Longmore (T), Barron (T), Johnson (7C)
Titans: 15 Sam Allan, 14 Connor Field, 13 Jamie Cooke, 12 Harry Dunne, 11 Ben Robbins, 10 Morgan Bunting (Boxhall 49), 9 Connor Dever, 1 Toby Williams, 2 Jack Bergmanas (Jones 56), 3 Reece Ward (Dennis 30), 4 Dan Preston-Routledge (Frost h-t), 5 Will Hughes (North h-t), 6 Zak Poole (Capt.), 7 Keifer Laxton, 8 Anthony Maka.
Replacements: 16 Ianto Jones, 17 Will Dennis, 18 Kieran Frost, 19 Alfie North, 20 Sam Boxhall.
Sale FC: 15 Tom Brady, 14 Anthony Bingham, 13 Fergus Mulchrone, 12 Johnny Leota (Rawcliffe 51), 11 Patrick Ah Van (Bradley 64), 10 Chris Johnson, 9 Matt Bradley (Calle Rivas 50), 1 Dan Birchall (Pope 41), 2 Ollie Longmore (Birchall 66), 3 Matt Talaese (Matthews 32) (Talaese 66), 4 Rhys Davies (Gray 61), 5 Nick Gray (Priestley-Nangle 41), 6 Jake Barron, 7 Andrew Hughes (Capt.), 8 Jarad Williams.
Replacements: 16 Jake Pope, 17 Dan Matthews, 18 Stone Priestley-Nangle, 19 Jonty Rawcliffe, 20 Emiliano Calle Rivas.
Photo: Gareth Lyons