Rotherham Titans claimed a deserved 22-20 victory over a tenacious Birmingham Moseley side to narrow the gap at the bottom of National 1 to 8 points.
Each side scored three tries apiece, with the Titans scores coming from lock forward Dan Preston-Routledge and back rowers Zak Poole and Lewis Wilson, whilst fly half and former Moseley player, Sam Hollingsworth added 7 points from the tee.
The win was a crucial one for the South Yorkshire side, as a five point defeat to the West Midlands outfit would have put them 16 points adrift in the relegation zone.
Instead, on the back of their win, Rotherham can take confidence from their much-improved performances over the last 3 weeks, as they seek more victories in order to narrow the gap further as the season draws towards the business end.
However, Titans’ hearts would have sunk early on, when after a promising start they fell 7-0 behind after just 4 minutes.
From turnover ball deep inside the opposition’s half, Moseley winger Matt Dight broke through and hacked on to score from 60 metres out, with Titans’ ‘old boy’ Cliffie Hodgson adding the conversion from close to the touchline.
This ‘new’ Titans side however no longer rolls over when things don’t quite go their way and the players showed their character by storming back with an aggression and intensity that will stand them in good stead for the battle ahead in the final third of the season.
This aggression and intensity led to Titans levelling matters just after the 20 minute mark, when following a series of pick and goes close to the line, lock forward Dan Preston-Routledge showed great strength to barge his way through three Moseley defenders to score, with fly half Sam Hollingsworth adding the extras.
Back came the Midlanders though and following a short period of forward pressure inside the Rotherham 22, they nosed ahead from a Hodgson penalty in front of the sticks.
Just before the break however and Titans deservedly re-took the lead when skipper Zak Poole barged his way over in the corner following a good drive from a line-out inside the 22. Hollingsworth impressed again from the tee to send his side in at the interval with a 14-10 advantage.
Titans though, would have been disappointed with their opening efforts to the second period, as following a clearance kick from Moseley just outside their 22, winger Aquile Smith collected on halfway virtually unopposed and proceeded to gallop in from 50 metres to push his side 15-14 ahead.
Again Rotherham bounced back with good intensity in what was fast becoming a thriller of a game. This time flanker Lewis Wilson showed good awareness to spot a gap at the breakdown before pouncing through to score. Unfortunately for Rotherham, Hollingsworth’s conversion hit the left post as the wind started to increase.
Just after the hour mark, this topsy-turvy encounter took another twist, when, as is often the case, a former Titan scores against his old club. This time fly half, Cliffie Hodgson, joined the tail of a maul to dot down for an unconverted try to sneak his side one point ahead.
As time was running out it appeared as if Rotherham would be on the wrong side of another single-score defeat.
However, from a scrum 45 metres out Titans were rewarded for their dominant set-piece when referee Charlie Gayther - who is surely set for greater things in the game - awarded Titans a penalty.
Up stepped Sam Hollingsworth and with nerves of steel he calmly slotted the winning score to the elation of the home crowd.
Commenting post-match, Titans’ Martin Jenkinson explained, “We talk all the time about the performance and we’ve seen for three weeks now, after things were changed, in our games against Plymouth, Cambridge and Moseley the team making improvements.
“People forget there are so many single-score games and you’ve got to be able to get on the right side of these scores. Last week and the week before we weren’t able to do that; but this week we were and all credit to the lads for doing so.
“That Birmingham side is a good side and they did a very good job against Cinderford last week, but I think any independent observer would say we played all the good rugby today.
“They got that fortunate breakaway try early on, but they are a good outfit and that’s what good teams can do, but I have to say that we are a good outfit also and now we are starting to look like the team we thought we would be.
“We went behind three times in the game and if that had happened to us before Christmas we would probably at that stage collapsed.
“However, we are in a different place now and the boys proved that with the strength of character they had to dig in, trust the process and come back to ultimately win the game.
“We are improving week on week and that gives us the confidence that we can go anywhere in this league and beat any team on our day and whilst that’s the situation there is more than hope for us.
“I don’t think sides will relish coming here or will relish us going to their place. We’ve got Darlington Mowden Park next and we will go up there looking for a win.”
Referee: Charlie Gayther
Attendance: 543
Yellow Card: None
Titans: Preston-Routledge (T), Poole (T), Wilson (T), Hollingsworth (2C, P)
Birmingham Moseley: Dight (T), Smith (T), Hodgson (T, C, P)
Titans: 15 Tom Bacon, 14 Jamie Cooke, 13 Tom Bullough, 12 Harry Dunne (Dever 8), 11 Ben Robbins, 10 Sam Hollingsworth, 9 Sam Boxhall, 1 Toby Williams, 2 Jack Bergmanas (Newborn 67), 3 Will Dennis, 4 Dan Preston-Routledge, 5 Kieran Frost, 6 Lewis Wilson (North 60), 7 Zak Poole (Capt.), 8 Anthony Maka (Laxton 76).
Replacements: 16 Harry Newborn, 17 Harry Whitfield, 18 Alfie North, 19 Keifer Laxton, 20 Connor Dever.
Birmingham Moseley: 15 Louis Roach, 14 Matt Dight, 13 Kieran Joyce, 12 Ravai Fatiaki, 11 Aquile Smith, 10 Cliffie Hodgson (Palmer 8) (Hodgson 21), 9 Johnny Arr (Capt.), 1 Nathaniel Titchard-Jones (Foreman 60), 2 Will Biggs, 3 James Tideswell (Langley 27) (Tideswell 68), 4 Tony Worthington, 5 Aaron Crofts (Stephens 60), 6 Zac Xiourouppa, 7 Morgan Dawes, 8 Buster Lawrence.
Replacements: 16 Joe Foreman, 17 David Langley, 18 Michael Stephens, 19 Jack Jolly, 20 Ben Palmer.
Photo Credit: Gareth Siddons