Rotherham Titans expect a full scale examination this weekend when they host top-of-the-table Fylde in round five of Nat 2 North; the game at Clifton Lane kicks-off on Saturday at 2pm.
Both sides remain unbeaten after 4 games and whilst Rotherham has accumulated 3 victories and a draw, their opponents have a perfect record of 4 wins.
Additionally, Fylde will come into the match bursting with confidence having smashed Harrogate 80-26 last time out at Woodlands, running in 12 tries in the process!
Titans come in to this one on the back of a good victory over Blaydon last week, after initially falling behind the South Yorkshire side eventually ran out 49-17 winners, having run in 7 tries themselves.
Going into the clash Roth have made 4 changes to their starting XV with Jonny West retuning at fly half for Joe Carlisle being the sole change along the backline.
Up front Colin Quigley is given the nod over Rikki Stout at tighthead, Matt Smith returns in the boiler-house for Theo Nwosu-Hope and Callum Bustin will make his home debut in a reshuffled back row for Lewis Allan.
Looking ahead to the game Titans’ Steve Salvin said:
“Fylde are a very accomplished attacking team who play with high intensity; you only have to look at their result from last weekend to see that they’re more than capable of racking points up very quickly.
“They like to play from deep when they get the opportunity and so I would expect a very similar challenge with the way they play to our last two weekends.
“If you look where they sit in terms of league position, they’ve won 4 games from 4, so up to this point in the season they are the strongest team that we’ve come up against.
“We will have to fight fire with fire; we can’t allow a team to dictate the tempo of the game, which is what we’ve been allowing teams to do. We need to be the team which sets the tone and we need to impose our game on them, not the other way round.”
Titans: 15 Lloyd Hayes, 14 George Tucker, 13 Mat Clark, 12 Harry Dunne, 11 Jamie Cooke, 10 Jonny West, 9 Sam Pocklington, 1 Charlie Capps, 2 Harry Newborn, 3 Colin Quigley, 4 Matt Challinor, 5 Matt Smith, 6 Zak Poole (Capt.), 7 Harry Williams, 8 Callum Bustin.
Replacements: 16 Francis Entressengle, 17 Alex Pleasants, 18 Rikki Stout, 19 Theo Nwosu-Hope, 20 Tom Lewis.
