In form Rotherham Titans are hoping to make it five successive wins when they travel to Harrogate on Saturday for their penultimate Nat 2 North game of the season; kick-off at Rudding Lane is 3pm.
A win on the road would secure Rotherham fifth position in the league, which following their mid-season slump, would be seen as a positive outcome to their 22/23 campaign.
Roth go into the game high in confidence, having recorded 4 consecutive wins against Preston Grasshoppers, Chester, Otley and Sheffield and should they make it five in a row that will be their best league run since January 2022.
However, despite Harrogate’s lowly league position (2nd from bottom), no away game in this division is a straightforward one and they will be keen to end their season with a notable win over their South Yorkshire rivals.
Indeed, the North Yorkshire side have notable wins this year at Rudding Lane against Chester, Sheffield Tigers, Blaydon, and Preston Grasshoppers, whilst they have also impressed away from home by beating Huddersfield.
As such Rotherham will go into the game giving the home side full respect, knowing they’ll need to maintain their enthusiasm and commitment in order to get the right result for them.
Going into the match Rotherham have made two personnel changes and two positional changes to the starting XV that beat Preston Grasshoppers last time out.
Along the backline Joe Carlisle comes in at fly half for Lloyd Hayes, whilst Tomasi Tanumi comes back into the side at outside centre, moving Harry Dunne to inside centre and Callum Bustin into the back row for Lewis Allan.
Speaking ahead of the game Titans head coach, Gary Pearce said:
“Although Harrogate’s had a tough year and are near to the bottom of the league, we know they are a force at home and not to be underestimated. They’ve always been competitive on their own patch and we expect it to be no different when we go there. They’ll want to finish the season off with a good performance and there’s no doubt they will be up for it.
“So we’ll have to make sure we’re switched on from the start and we keep doing the good things we’ve been doing recently. We’ll also need to be a bit more clinical when our opportunities arise; we’ve been playing some nice rugby and if we can be a bit more disciplined and cut down on our errors we’ll have more chance to attack them.
“Traditionally Harrogate are strong up front and so we know it’s going to be a test in that area, but we’ll try to dominate there and get on the front foot if we can; if we manage that then we can play some rugby.
“We’ll also need to show some patience when we have the ball; we don’t have to score every time we get the ball and we have spoken about that in training this week.
“But overall we need to keep our enthusiasm and commitment levels high; if we do we will give ourselves an opportunity to get a result and keep our recent good run going.”
Titans: 15 Jack Taylor, 14 Jack Hedley, 13 Tomasi Tanumi, 12 Harry Dunne, 11 Luckas Sableman-Blue, 10 Joe Carlisle, 9 Sam Veall, 1 Charlie Capps, 2 Jack Bergmanas, 3 Danny Rylance, 4 Matt Challinor, 5 Theo Nwosu-Hope, 6 Callum Bustin, 7 Marcus Payne, 8 Zak Poole (Capt.).
Replacements: 23 Aydan Godden, 17 Alastair Donkor, 29 Gareth Denman, 27 Cade Cambier, 21 George Tucker.
