Rotherham Titans continued their successful pre-season campaign with a hard-fought, but well deserved 31-21 win over a very decent Guernsey Raiders side.
Titans performance was less fluid than 7 days earlier against Leeds, however, they still managed to outscore their hosts by 5 tries to 3, despite a challenging day’s preparation.
The day started early for many with alarm clocks ringing at 3:30am. A 2-hour delay at Manchester airport followed with the squad sat on the plane for over 90 minutes and then whilst sitting down for their pre-match meal we’re told the kick-off would be delayed by 1 hour to 7 o’clock.
So all in all to run out winners against a much-improved Guernsey outfit is not to be underestimated.
The game itself saw Rotherham start brightly as they raced into a 10-0 lead inside the opening 15 minutes, following a nice individual try for Rob Povey and a pack effort finished off by Jack Bergmanas.
Titans had further opportunities to extend their lead but failed to take them.
This led to the home side finding some confidence of their own which saw them score a converted try on the half hour mark to reduce their arrears to 10-7.
The first half was ended prematurely by the referee as a Guernsey player suffered what appeared to be a serious leg injury.
The half time break allowed Rotherham to regain their composure and 2 quick tries followed after the restart.
Harry Gilson-Fox crashed over for another pack try, before Lloyd Hayes intercepted and raced home from distance.
Not to be outdone Guernsey continued to battle hard and put Rotherham under pressure.
Raiders endeavours were rewarded with 2 late tries which narrowed the gap to 24-21 with 10 minutes remaining and set-up a tense finale.
Rotherham however controlled the final moments and put the game to bed when Luke Cole dotted down at the end.
