Rotherham Titans ran out 38-14 winners over Tynedale to maintain their unbeaten start to the season on a cool and breezy afternoon at Clifton Lane.
Rotherham outscored their opponents by 6 tries to 2 with a brace from Tom Lewis and one each for Rikki Stout, Mat Clark, Alastair Donkor and a penalty try, with fly half Lloyd Hayes adding 6 points from the tee.
The win sees Rotherham stay in fifth place in the league, nine points behind leaders Stourbridge, but with one game in hand on their West Midlands rivals.
The game itself saw Rotherham dominate throughout; although to be fair to the visitors they never stopped battling and indeed enjoyed some good moments in the second half.
However, right from the off Titans appeared to be in control with their set piece quickly established a platform from which to build.
On 12 minutes that platform resulted in tighthead prop Rikki Stout dotting down for Titans first try, after a powerful drive from a line out marched relentlessly forwards.
By the end of the first quarter Roth extended their lead when the ball was moved quickly from the base of a ruck by Sam Boxhall to Lloyd Hayes at first receiver; the fly half threw a lovely miss-pass to Mat Clark who showed good strength to power over.
Just after the half hour mark and Titans scored a belter of a team try through full back Tom Lewis.
From a Roth scrum just outside their own 22 Boxhall picked up and found Mat Clark who made good ground before involving Jamie Cooke and Callum Bustin who took play up to Tynedale’s 22.
Boxhall, Hayes, Stout, Newborn and Dunne were all then involved as the ball went through the hands before arriving with full back Tom Lewis who raced in to score a superb try in the corner.
Two minutes into the second half Tom Lewis had his second and Titans fourth try when from a Lloyd Hayes clearance kick Tynedale fumbled which enabled Lewis to gather up the loose ball to charge in from 40 metres and score in the corner to give his side a 24-0 lead.
Maybe at this point the home side thought it was job done and maybe their intensity dropped a fraction; but whatever it was credit must be given to Tynedale as they enjoyed a 15 minute period where their hard-work and adventure rewarded them with two converted tries through second rower Chris Wearmouth and centre Guy Pike.
However, in the final 10 minutes Rotherham re-gathered themselves to seal a fine victory when first they were awarded a penalty try on 74 minutes and then eight seconds after coming on as a replacement, loosehead prop Alastair Donkor found a gap in the defence to charge through for Titans sixth try of the match.
Commenting on the result, Titans new head coach, Adam Byron said:
“I am really pleased with how my first game has gone, it’s great to experience the atmosphere and to see what the Titans are all about at home and it’s great that we started with a home fixture.
“It’s good to get the five point win because that what we asked the boys to do. There’s obviously stuff to work on, but that’s normal otherwise we wouldn’t do any training in the week because there wouldn’t be anything to work on and I’m looking forward to getting some more work done with the lads.
“We are always trying to solve issues, we spoke in the week of how we start games etc... and unfortunately this week it was the other way round and we weren’t at our best in the opening period of the second half and we didn’t quite perform as we would have liked.
“I’ve just said to the lads that rugby is about problem solving and that’s not just on a Tuesday and Thursday, but also during the 80 minutes of a game. We did a good job in the first half, but in the second we just needed to problem solve a little bit more.
“It was good to see three of our tries came through the backs, but that’s also credit to our forwards because they suck teams in and get them narrow and that gives our boys in the backline the opportunities to do their thing and they were able to exploit that today.”
Referee: Ben Davis
Attendance: 523
Yellow Card: Theo Nwosu-Hope (Titans)
Titans: Lewis (2T), Stout (T), Clark (T), Donkor (T), Penalty Try, Hayes (3C)
Tynedale: Wearmouth (T), Pike (T), Ball (2C)
Titans: 15 Tom Lewis, 14 Connor Field, 13 Mat Clark, 12 Harry Dunne, 11 Jamie Cooke, 10 Lloyd Hayes, 9 Sam Boxhall (Pocklington 74), 1 Charlie Capps (Donkor 74), 2 Harry Newborn (Entressengle 71), 3 Rikki Stout (Quigley 54) (Stout 71), 4 Matt Challinor, 5 Matt Smith, 6 Marcus Payne (Nwosu-Hope 54), 7 Zak Poole (Capt.), 8 Callum Bustin.
Replacements: 16 Fran Entressengle, 17 Colin Quigley, 18 Alastair Donkor, 19 Theo Nwosu-Hope, 20 Sam Pocklington.
Tynedale: 15 Jay West, 14 Seamus Hutton, 13 Guy Pike, 12 James Clark, 11 Adam Todhunter (Outson 66), 10 Matty Outson (Capt.), 9 Alex Ball, 1 Angus White (Carmichael 48), 2 Ralph Johnston, 3 Ben Haigh (Loughhead 69), 4 Chris Wearmouth (Blackburn 56), 5 Graeme Dunn, 6 Jonny Cousin, 7 Joe Mills (Stanwix 62), 8 Henry Wainwright.
Replacements: 16 Liam Carmichael, 17 Owen Loughhead, 18 Rob Stanwix, 19 Jack Outson, 20 Ben Blackburn.
Photo Credit: Gareth Siddons