Round twelve of National 1 this weekend sees Rotherham Titans take on an in-form Blackheath; kick-off at Clifton Lane on Saturday is 2pm.
Following a break week in the fixture calendar Rotherham go into the game fresh and on the back of an excellent home performance which saw them beat the then league leaders Rams 21-14.
The hard-fought affair in atrocious conditions saw Rotherham battle it out on an equal footing for the full 80 minutes, with their defence once again laying the foundations for an excellent win.
In National league 1 however the tough games keep on coming and that’s true this week with the visit of Blackheath.
The famous old club are in fine form and are enjoying a successful season having won 7 of their 11 games and currently sit fifth in the league.
‘Club’ have achieved some eye-caching home wins over Rosslyn Park, Sale FC and Dings Crusaders, whilst also putting heavy defeats on Darlington Mowden Park and Esher; notable wins away from Well Hall have seen them beat Sedgley Park and Bishop’s Stortford.
Clearly Rotherham will have their hands full against a side they have previously met on nine occasions, with the overall head-to-head standing at 6-3 in Titans favour; although the last 2 encounters have seen the London based side prevail.
Going into this week’s game Rotherham have made four changes to their starting XV.
In the front row hooker Luke Cole comes in for Jack Bergmanas and he is flanked by props Charlie Capps at loosehead and Andrew Foster at tighthead.
The second row sees Curran Maguire lining up alongside Frankie Gascoigne who comes in for Harry Gilson-Fox, whilst in the back row the only change sees John Okafor come in for Ellis Thomas and he is joined by Zak Poole and Callum Bustin.
Across the backline scrum half JB Bruzulier is accompanied by Corben Ollivent, who comes in for Rob Povey, in the half back positions, with Lloyd Hayes and Jamie Cooke maintaining their partnership in midfield.
The back three also stays the same with Tomasi Tanumi and Aidan Shortall on the wings with Ronnie Du Randt at full back.
Looking ahead to the game Titans Harvey Biljon said:
“It was a very rewarding result and performance against Rams, especially concerning all the challenges we had leading up through the week, but when it all came together with the result going our way it was a very satisfying outcome.
“You can see why Rams are top of the table and you can see after the performance how much work we’ve still got to put in, but that’s the exciting part of the journey for us.
“We will continue to work hard and just go about our business; after the Rams game the boys came in on the Tuesday and although there was no game that weekend they put in some extra work and that’s great considering the disruption we had the previous week.
“We now step into the next challenge which is Blackheath, Richmond and Darlington in our next block of games before Christmas.
“When I left Wasps I coached at Blackheath, I was Director of Coaching there for over 3 years and it’s a great club. It will be good to hopefully see some familiar faces, I’m sure lots of people have moved on, but it was a real learning experience for me as a young coach coming out of playing.
“If you look at the Blackheath team today and the names across their squad, I think this is going to be some challenge for us, but it’s a challenge we are looking forward to taking on.
“They’ve been very unlucky with some of their results this season, but they’ve also shown where their qualities have come through. Blackheath could very comfortably get to the back end of the season being up there challenging Rams and Richmond at the top; they are definitely a top-end National 1 team and probably with the squad they’ve got would definitely be challenging for that Tier 2 status in the Championship.
“I think they have a good balance between the forwards and backs; they’ve got Augustin Slowik in their backline and he can score tries from anywhere, but they’ve also got power through their pack. James Shanahan (Blackheath Director of Rugby) knows a lot about this league and he’ll know a fair bit about us because he will have done his research. So, he’ll know about Clifton Lane and the challenges that brings and it’s going to be a tough fixture.
“I’ll be looking at us and asking if we are good enough to back it up again and that’s not getting a result, it’s backing up the same performance, the same attitude going into the game. If we can do that then the results usually take care of themselves.
“But we’ll not get ahead of ourselves, we’ll just worry about Tuesday night training, Thursday night training and then we get to Saturday’s and the challenges that brings.”
Titans: 15 Ronnie Du Randt, 14 Tomasi Tanumi, 13 Lloyd Hayes, 12 Jamie Cooke, 11 Aidan Shortall, 10 Corben Ollivent, 9 JB Bruzulier, 1 Charlie Capps ©, 2 Luke Cole, 3 Andrew Foster, 4 Frankie Gascoigne, 5 Curran Maguire, 6 John Okafor, 7 Zak Poole ©, 8 Callum Bustin.
Replacements: 16 Jack Bergmanas, 17 Loma Kivalu, 18 Alastair Donkor, 19 Ellis Thomas, 20 James Naylor.
NOTE: Cash only on the gate £12 members - £15 non-members - try to have the right money please. Cards accepted at the bar.
