Rotherham Titans got back to winning ways with a convincing 47-19 victory over an energetic Blaydon side on a bright afternoon at Crow Trees.
The South Yorkshire outfit ran in 7 tries to 3 with Jack Hedley scoring a hat trick, Sam Boxhall bagging a brace and one each for Jack Taylor and Callum Bustin. Lloyd Hayes added 12 points from the tee with 6 successful conversions.
The scoreline however masks the fact Blaydon were a very competitive outfit that made Rotherham work hard for everything they got.
Indeed after just 11 minutes Titans trailed 12-0 following two nice tries from Blaydon’s scrum half John Clarkson, who also converted his first dot down.
At this point the game had a Déjà vu feel to it, as in the corresponding fixture last term Titans trailed 17-0 after 17 minutes.
However, Rotherham began to settle into the game and they started to establish some sort of control in proceedings.
This in turn led to their first try on 25 minutes when following a period of forward dominance the ball arrived with Lloyd Hayes who offloaded to Connor Dever for him to quickly send in winger Jack Hedley in the corner.
Five minutes later and Hedley had his second score after a terrific break from Zak Poole took play inside the 22; from there the ball came out to Corban Ollivent who found Dever in the backfield, he threw a glorious miss-pass to Hedley who cut back inside to touch down.
As half time approached Roth added a third score when a lovely cross-field kick from Sam Veall was collected by Jack Taylor, from out wide on the left wing he proceeded to glide through for a nice try. Hayes narrowly missed his only conversion of the game and the sides went in with Roth 19-12 to the good.
Within 3 minutes of the restart Titans secured the bonus point.
Matt Challinor started things off with a powerful break in midfield before finding Sam Boxhall; he in turn fed Sam Veall who made a skilful offload as he was going to ground under pressure to Jack Hedley; the speedy winger wasted no time in racing through for his hat-trick.
However, if Roth had thought Blaydon were about to roll over and allow them to dictate, they would have been mistaken, as just 3 minutes later the home side had their third score when replacement back, Zac Thompson charged through close to the posts.
Despite Blaydon’s refusal to give up two tries from Roth’s scrum half Sam Boxhall effectively wrapped up the contest.
His first came after good work from Corban Ollivent down the right hand side, whilst his second was a more individual effort that saw him intercept a pass on his own line, before racing 95 metres downfield to dot down.
Then just before the end of what had been a good display of rugby from both teams, Titans Callum Bustin put the icing on the cake when he ran in following a dominant scrum from the visitors.
Speaking after the game, Titans forwards coach, Matt Smith, said:
“We’ve just had a month away from rugby and our last game against Preston was very disappointing, but today was far better. To get five points away from home on the back of a long trip is very pleasing and it’s just nice to get that winning feeling again.
“I thought the lads did some really good stuff today and to put 47 points on a team means you have to do a lot of things right.
“We are building, we are starting something new and we are trying to get that accountability in there because that was a big thing that was missing and I’m really happy for the boys.
“I was delighted with how the scrum went and that allowed us to get a foothold in the game and obviously control the territory.
“I thought when we did open up and when we got into our attack that we played some good stuff and with Connor Dever coming in at 10 that probably helped, as that freed us up a bit and allowed us to attack them and as a result we scored some great tries.”
Referee: Dave Charlton
Attendance: 225
Yellow Card: Bailey (Tynedale)
Titans: Hedley (3T), Boxhall (2T), Taylor (T), Bustin (T), Hayes (6C)
Blaydon: Clarkson (2T, C), Thompson (T, C)
Titans: 15 Sam Veall, 14 Jack Hedley, 13 Jack Taylor, 12 Lloyd Hayes, 11 Luckas Sableman-Blue (Ollivent 18) (Sableman-Blue 69), 10 Connor Dever, 9 Sam Boxhall, 1 Charlie Capps (Denman 61), 2 Jack Bergmanas (Newborn 45) (Bergmanas 69), 3 Gareth Denman (Rylance 31), 4 Matt Challinor, 5 Lewis Allan (Bustin 72), 6 Theo Nwosu-Hope (Cambier 72), 7 Rupert Kay, 8 Zak Poole (Capt.).
Replacements: 16 Harry Newborn, 17 Danny Rylance, 18 Callum Bustin, 19 Cade Cambier, 20 Corben Ollivent.
Blaydon: 15 Nathan Bailey, 14 Jonny Ashman, 13 James Cooney, 12 Ewan Greenlaw, 11 Jack Appleton (Thompson 29), 10 Dan Marshall (Capt.), 9 John Clarkson (Douglas 45), 1 Ralph Appleby, 2 Charlie Smith (Sanderson 67), 3 Alex Dodds (Siddle 50), 4 Darren Barry, 5 Austin Phillips, 6 Liam Wright, 7 Cameron Roy (Turnbull 65), 8 Ethan Hall-Lyon (Roy 72).
Replacements: 16 Matt Siddle, 17 Dan Sanderson, 18 Adam Turnbull, 19 Ben Douglas, 20 Zac Thompson.
