Rotherham Titans put in an impressive overall performance to beat a spirited Tynedale side 42-7 on a bright afternoon at Clifton Lane.
Titans outscored their North East opponents by six tries to one with dot downs from Luke Cole, Loma Kivalu, Zak Poole, Harry Dunne, Tomasi Tanumi and Lloyd Hayes, with the latter also adding 12 points from a perfect afternoon with the boot.
In an entertaining game where 49 points were scored, only 7 were scored in the first half!
Despite Rotherham totally dominating territory and possession and spending long periods inside the Tynedale 22, they found it difficult to cross the whitewash; this was in no small part due to the tenacity shown by the visiting defence.
Indeed it took until the 39th minute before the deadlock was broken by hooker Luke Cole who received the ball five metres out and proceeded to barge his way over close to the posts. Lloyd Hayes knocked over the extras, as he did all game.
Following the half time oranges there was no long wait for the next score as inside 2 minutes Rotherham were on the board again.
Following good work down the right hand side from Tomasi Tanumi the ball was fed back infield and arrived with Loma Kivalu who showed great strength to bulldoze his way over.
The cork was now out of the bottle and five minutes later Roth had their third score when a quick-tap from Lloyd Hayes was fed to skipper Zak Poole for him to dot down.
The bonus point and effectively match winning score was collected on 53 minutes and fittingly it came from centre Harry Dunne on his 100th appearance for the club. Following good work from winger Jack Taylor the ball was eventually fed out by Will Metcalfe to Dunne who showed great desire to crash over in the corner.
Before the hour mark Lloyd Hayes got in on the act when Tynedale fumbled the ball around halfway and Jack Townend hacked on, as the chase entered the try zone the ball bobbled up nicely for Hayes to dot down.
Credit to Tynedale however as they fought back with good endeavour and when prop forward Mike Hughes crashed over following a series of pick-and-goes, it was fully deserved for the teams efforts all afternoon.
Rotherham had the final word though when a catch and drive was finished off unexpectedly by winger Tomasi Tanumi to put the cherry on top of a fine performance.
There’s no match next week, so Rotherham will look to prepare well for their next test which sees them travel to top side Fylde.
Speaking after the game Titans Harvey Biljon reflected:
“At half time we described it as slow poison, because we knew the pressure we put on them in the first half would tell in the second and you have to give Tynedale a lot of credit for the defensive efforts they put in.
“The change we wanted in the second half was to be more accurate with the pressure and then we knew we would get our scores.
“Coming out at the start of the second half with the speed of ball and the physicality that we showed was the reason we scored 35 points in the half.
“We’ve spoken about the game and where we can control the pitch; we can get territory and possession and then we can go to work and that’s working and we need to try and maintain that.
“In the time I’ve been here that’s the best defensive effort I’ve seen from Rotherham. We are making great strides in that department; if we were to highlight an area where we’ve made a real improvement, I think we saw that today with our defence.
“We need to give a mention to Harry Dunne; what an achievement to play 100 games for the club, that’s impressive. Then to round it off with a score where he had to work for it was very pleasing and we congratulate him for that”
Referee: Sam Yates
Attendance: 250
Yellow Card: Wearmouth, Haigh & White (Tynedale)
Titans: Cole (T), Kivalu (T), Poole (T), Dunne (T), Tanumi (T), Hayes (T, 6C)
Tynedale: Hughes (T), Parker (1C)
Titans: 15 Jack Townend, 14 Tomasi Tanumi, 13 Lloyd Hayes, 12 Harry Dunne (JB Bruzulier 56), 11 Jack Taylor, 10 Will Milner (Dunne 57), 9 Will Metcalfe, 1 Charlie Capps (Kivalu 35), 2 Luke Cole (Bergmanas 56), 3 Gareth Denman (Capps 57), 19 John Okafor, 5 Matt Smith (Allan 67), 25 Harry Newborn, 7 Rupert Kay (Payne 40), 8 Zak Poole (Capt.).
Replacements: 16 Jack Bergmanas, 17 Loma Kivalu, 18 Lewis Allan, 6 Marcus Payne, 20 JB Bruzulier.
Tynedale: 15 Joe Beaty, 14 Alex Dryden (Nankivell 22) (Rewcastle 31), 23 Euan Forlow, 12 Will Milner (Scott 67), 11 Seamus Hutton (Hughes 52) (Hutton 62), 10 Rob Parker, 9 James Telford (Capt.), 21 Mike Hughes (White 29), 2 Ralph Johnston, 3 Micky Rewcastle (Dryden 25), 4 Chris Wearmouth, 5 Graeme Dunn (Nankivell 71), 6 Jonny Cousin, 7 Henry Wainwright, 8 Owen Vassallo (Hanning 40).
Replacements: 1 Angus White, 17 Ben Haigh, 18 Will Nankivell, 16 Joe Hanning, 20 Ryan Scott.
Harry Dunne scores on his 100th appearance
Photo Credit: Gareth Siddons