Rotherham Titans will aim to keep their title ambitions alive on Saturday when they take on old rivals Hull Ionians in round 21 of National 2 North; kick-off at Clifton Lane is 2pm.
With six games remaining Rotherham trail Leeds Tykes at the top by 6 points, with the West Yorkshire side scheduled to visit Clifton Lane towards the end of the month.
However, Titans can’t afford to take their eye off the ball this weekend, as although by Ionians high standards they’ve not had the best of seasons; they have shown on their day they are a match for any side.
The East Riding outfit have had notable wins away to Hull and at home to Wharfedale and last time out scored a 31-19 bonus point win over Lymm.
However, Rotherham too has shown they are a good side and have only been defeated once in 20 games.
Indeed last time out on a bog of a pitch at Lockwood Park they showed great determination to grab the spoils against a grizzly Huddersfield side. Titans fully deserved their bonus point 31-12 success to extend their winning run to 9 games.
In the reverse fixture at Brantingham Park back in November the sides shared a 10-try thriller with Rotherham scoring 7 of those to secure an impressive 49-24 win.
Overall the teams have met on 9 previous occasions with the South Yorkshire side coming out on top in 7 of them, with Ionians winning one and one draw.
Going into this week’s match Rotherham have made three changes to the starting XV that beat Huddersfield, two of which come in the forwards.
In the second row skipper Zak Poole returns from injury and comes in for Lewis Allan, whilst in the back row Rupert Kay comes in for Harry Newborn.
Along the backline the only change sees Tomasi Tanumi come in on the wing for Jack Taylor.
Looking ahead to the game Titans Gaz Lewis said:
“I thought it was a very difficult afternoon last week at Huddersfield with the conditions as they were, they didn’t lend themselves to an attractive brand of rugby for either side; but full credit to our boys, I thought we ground it out and played the conditions well despite the elements and to achieve the bonus point by half time was a superb effort from the lads.
“Huddersfield made life difficult and the game didn’t really come to life in the second half as the spectacle we wanted. They were a spirited outfit and they tried their best to upset our rhythm; I thought at times their discipline was borderline; but we didn’t rise to it and the lads stuck to their task. We kept 15 men on the field and at the end of the day we should be proud of our efforts.
“We have another tough challenge against a good side in Hull Ionians. By their own high standards they’ve had a disappointing season; they’ve always been one of the top sides in the league and I’m sure they are a bit disappointed with how this year has gone.
“However, they are capable of putting in some great performances and they’ve got some proven performers in their ranks. Joe Makin who is part of their coaching team is an experienced second row, they have Lewis Minikin behind the scrum that has a bit of X-Factor about him and who’s also an excellent goal kicker and they have James Sanderson who is a quality back row player. So they have a number of players who are capable of influencing the game and we’ll need to be on our mettle if we are to try and keep them quiet.
“If we are to get a result against them I think it’s important that we start well, as is often the case. We need to get into the game early, stick with our game plan and apply ourselves. We’ll need to be physical in both attack and defence, manage the territorial battle and make sure when we get into the right areas we come away with points and we keep the scoreboard ticking over.”
Titans: 15 Jack Townend, 14 Tomasi Tanumi, 13 Lloyd Hayes, 12 Harry Dunne, 11 Cuchulain Livingstone, 10 Will Milner, 9 JB Bruzulier, 1 Charlie Capps, 2 Jack Bergmanas, 3 Reece Ward, 4 Zak Poole (Capt.), 5 John Okafor, 6 Laurence Cowen-Leak, 7 Rupert Kay, 8 Callum Bustin.
Replacements: 16 Lewis Allan, 17 Loma Kivalu, 18 Gareth Denman, 19 Tainne Finn, 20 Will Metcalfe.
