Rotherham Titans showed plenty of promise in their opening pre-season game, despite narrowly going down 21-12 to a very capable Sale FC outfit.
The home side outscored Titans by three tries to two, with Louis Inman and Callum Bustin crossing the whitewash for the South Yorkshire side.
The game was played out in three periods of 25 minutes under the most challenging weather conditions, as the mercury passed the 30 degree mark!
Sale FC started much the brighter and looked razor sharp in the opening period, as their pacey backline ran in two slick tries to give them a 14-0 edge.
The second period was a more even affair, as each side scored one try each. Following Sale’s third try Roth bounced back immediately as young hooker Louis Inman dotted down from the tail of a powerful maul.
The third period saw Rotherham enjoy the lion’s share of territory and possession and indeed score the only points in the final play of the game, when from a driving maul back rower Callum Bustin powered over.
The South Yorkshire can be more than satisfied with their first run-out of the year, especially when considering the ability of their opposition.
Indeed, Titans head coach, Adam Byron, speaking on the pitch immediately after the game was happy with what he saw:
“We are really pleased with how things went today, especially when you consider the strength of the Sale side and how long they’ve been together.
“They had a very successful season last year and almost got promoted to the Championship; so to come away with such a narrow defeat on the back of an overall great effort from our lads is very pleasing.
“To be fair our line out didn’t function as well as we would have liked, but we’ve got time to work on that before our first game against Harrogate.
“On the positive side we had a number of new boys making their first start for the club and to a man they all put in a great shift. I thought Corben Ollivent, for one so young, had a very good outing and to see such confidence at his age is encouraging for the season ahead.
“But was pleased me the most was how we stuck to the structure, we were very aware of what we needed to do in each area of the pitch. Obviously there will always be one or two things we can work on, but overall we executed our game plan very well.”
Squad:
Alastair Donkor
Callum Bustin
Charlie Capps
Corben Ollivent
Danny Rylance
Gareth Denman
George Tucker
Harry Dunne
Jack Bergmanas
Jack Hedley
Jack Taylor
Kai Ramrattan
Kareem Eissa
Levi Davis
Lewis Allan
Lewis Wilson
Lloyd Hayes
Louis Inman
Luckas Sableman-Blue
Marcus Payne
Matt Challinor
Rikki Stout
Sam Boxhall
Sam Veal
Theo Nwosu-Hope
Zak Poole
Photo Credit: Gareth Lyons