Rotherham Titans starting their pre-season in style as they beat a resilient Preston Grasshoppers side 40-5 on a balmy afternoon at Lightfoot Green.
A torturous journey to the north-west saw the Rotherham team bus delayed by more than an hour, meaning the kick-off had to be moved back 30 minutes.
Indeed it was the hosts who started the game brighter and they enjoyed the better of the opening exchanges. This resulted in Preston taking the lead inside 10 minutes as a nice backs move saw them cross the whitewash next to the sticks.
However, Titans soon established themselves into the contest and went on to score three tries in each half as they shook off the early season cobwebs, as they looked to sharpen their skills ahead of their upcoming National One campaign in two weeks time.
Titans played two different teams in each half in order to give as many of their wider-squad game time as possible. The first 40 minutes side played some excellent rugby, resulting in scrum half Connor Dever, winger Ben Robbins and centre Tom Bullough all scoring fine tries.
The second half team also made their mark; the scrum which had been a little creaky in the first period found a more stable footing in the second period. A brace of tries from back rower Lewis Wilson followed and one at the death from centre Harry Dunne saw the Titans round off a more than satisfactory opening-game performance.
On the surface of this opener, whilst there’s always plenty of work-ons, there were also plenty of positives. The new boys made an effective contribution and not solely because they accounted for 4 of the 6 tries scored.
And whilst it’s difficult to highlight individuals when the whole squad played well, it has to be mentioned that Anthony Maka in the back row looks to be an abrasive and powerful performer, as does fellow back-rower Lewis Wilson. Harry Newborn enjoyed a fine performance at hooker, as did Tom Bullough in the centres.
Commenting post-match, Titans joint head coach, Anthony Posa reflected, “We are reasonably happy because we needed a game and Preston Grasshoppers posed lots of questions throughout and that’s what we wanted and it was good to see the boys come up with the answers. But moving forwards I want us to be the one asking the questions of the opposition a bit more than we did today.
“However, when we did play we played some really nice stuff. We are a young team and the boys are beginning to gel together, but we’ll keep our feet firmly planted on the ground moving forwards.
“So whilst we are pleased with some of what we saw today, we didn’t manage to execute everything we wanted to, unlike the way we have been doing in training. We just need to keep working hard because we were a little sloppy in certain areas and we need our standards to be high.
“Having said that this was just our first game and we don’t need to be too harsh on each other, as there are plenty of positives to take forward into the Wharfedale match next week.”
