Rotherham Titans are prepared for a tough examination when they travel to Chinnor on Saturday for what is anticipated to be a National 1 battle; kick-off at Kingsey Road is 2:30pm.
Making what is already a challenging fixture a tad more tricky, is the fact Titans are unable to select from the following 10 players; Ellis Abrahams, Sam Allan, Jamie Cooke, Mark Fairhurst, Connor Field, Callum Irvine, Conor Keys, Rikki Stout, Eru Smith-Wano and Jessie Williams.
Added to that, Titans number 8 Seb Nagle-Taylor will start his first game at outside centre, whilst on the bench is assistant coach Christian Head who will cover the back five forward positions.
However, despite the challenges in selection Titans believe they have enough quality in their squad to grab the points in this tough away fixture, providing they can keep the error count to a minimum.
Other changes in Rotherham’s starting XV see in the backline Henry Roberts come in on the wing for Connor Field and Harry Dunne come in at inside centre, as Joe Barker moves to fly half for the injured Callum Irvine.
In the pack Tom Cotterill comes in at openside as Zak Poole moves to number 8, allowing Seb Nagle-Taylor to make his debut as a back.
Speaking ahead of the game Joe Barker said, “We were disappointed with how things went last week at Plymouth, especially in front of the large number of Rotherham supporters who travelled, but we’ve had a good look back at it this week and we’ve had a great response from the lads in training.
“Going into Chinnor we have a few boys missing and as usual at this time of the year there’s a fair few bumps and bruises around, but all teams have these issues and it’s a case of just getting your head down and working hard for the team.
“We know Chinnor has a good pack of forwards and they will back themselves at the set piece, but we feel the lads have made massive improvements and particularly so at the scrum.
“We didn’t win the collisions at Plymouth, so we’ll need to be aggressive and make sure we win those at Chinnor; that will allow us to get into our phase-play which in turn will put us in a great place.”
Titans: 15 Alex Dolly, 14 Dan Leake, 13 Seb Nagle-Taylor (Capt.), 12 Harry Dunne, 11 Henry Roberts, 10 Joe Barker, 9 Connor Dever, 1 Dan Richardson, 2 Jack Bergmanas, 3 Will Dennis, 4 Jamie Ure, 5 Kieran Frost, 6 Luis Ball, 7 Tom Cotterill, 8 Zak Poole.
Replacements: 16 Ali Thomson, 17 Antony Dickinson, 18 Dan Preston-Routledge, 19 Christian Head, 20 Tom Allott.
