Rotherham Titans let a 13-0 lead slip away as they eventually fell to a 26-13 defeat to Leeds Tykes on a wet afternoon at West Park.
Following virtual domination for 55 minutes, which in turn saw Rotherham ease into a 13-0 lead following maul tries from Matt Challinor and Harry Newborn, with Jonny West adding a penalty, no one in the ground would have predicted what was to follow.
Indeed, Rotherham had looked a superior side to the one which had suffered a heavy defeat at Sale two weeks earlier. The scrum, line out and maul all functioned with great efficiency and control and a comfortable victory looked a formality.
However, an opportunistic Leeds side capitalised with 3 tries in the space of 12 second half minutes.
Two quick tap-and-go penalties caught Roth flat-footed as Leeds speedy backs raced in to score and then a Leeds penalty which bounced back of the post was snaffled by a quicker-to-react home side for their third try.
Late on Rotherham did look to drive over following a terrific march up to the line from the pack, but the Leeds defence came in from the side in huge numbers to prevent this and indeed get the turnover.
The referee can’t be blamed for missing this as the game was played without any touch judges and he must have felt all alone on a difficult afternoon.
And just to rub salt into the Rotherham wounds, Leeds went over again in the final play of the game to give the score line a very uneven look.
Post-match a disappointed Titans head coach, Steve Salvin said, “I thought we did some good things in the first half and we got some set-piece dominance, which is always important to us.
“We started the second half in the same vein, but to be fair to Leeds they turned it around by ultimately getting the better of us at the breakdown and I think probably working that little bit harder.
“I think the biggest issues we had today stemmed from the breakdown and our inability to secure the ball there and then obviously when you are in attack shape and you get turned over you are not in the right position to defend and we weren’t able to work hard enough to get back quick enough to give ourselves a chance to stop them scoring.
“So ultimately we are disappointed with how things went and we know we’ll have to be a lot better against Wharfedale in our first game of the season.”
Check out Harry Newborn’s try for the Titans HERE
Titans Squad:
1. C. Capps
2. H. Newborn
3. C. Quigley
4. M. Challinor
5. L. Allan
6. T. N-Hope
7. H. Williams
8. Z. Poole
9. S. Pocklington
10. J. West
11. J. Cooke
12. H. Dunne
13. M. Clark
14. C. Field
15. L. Hayes
16. F. Entressengle
17. R. Stout
18. M. Payne
19. M. Drennan
20. J. Carlisle
21. L. Taylor
22. G. Tucker
Photo courtesy of John Ashton