Round sixteen of National 1 sees Rotherham Titans play their first game of 2025 when they host Sale FC at Clifton Lane; kick-off on Saturday is 2pm.
Rotherham should have kicked off their 2025 with a trip to Esher last week, however a frozen pitch at Molesley Road made the game unplayable and so it will have been 4 weeks since Titans and Sale last turned out in anger following the Christmas break and, no doubt, they’ll be some rust that needs shaking off.
Titans last outing saw them overcome a tenacious Darlington Mowden Park side 29-14 at Clifton Lane, but they had to wait until the final play of the game to secure the bonus point.
Sale FC last ran out against Sedgley Park where they suffered a narrow 14-12 defeat at Park Lane despite outscoring the hosts by 2 tries to 1.
When the sides met earlier in the season at Heywood Road it was the hosts that edged the result 21-17 with a try in the final play of the game from hooker Josh Brown and another close game it anticipated.
The overall head-to-head is also tight with Sale FC holding a slender 3-2 lead.
Going into this week’s match Rotherham have made three changes to the starting XV that took on DMP.
In the front row hooker Jack Bergmanas comes in for Luke Cole and he is flanked by props Charlie Capps at loosehead and Andrew Foster at tighthead.
The second row sees Zak Poole move there from the back row for Harry Gilson-Fox and he lines up with Curran Maguire.
In the back row John Okafor stays on the blindside as does Travis Gordon on the openside with Callum Bustin returning at number 8 for Zak Poole.
Across the backline scrum half JB Bruzulier is again accompanied in the half back positions by Rob Povey, with Lloyd Hayes and Jamie Cooke maintaining their partnership in midfield.
The back three sees Jack Townend at full back, with Cuchulain Livingstone coming in for Tomasi Tanumi on one wing and Ronnie Du Randt on the other.
Looking ahead to the fixture Titans Harvey Biljon said:
“2024 was a good year for the club and it was nice to end it with a hard-fought win over Darlington Mowden Park. You have to give credit to Darlington, they were definitely fighting for everything.
“From a Rotherham perspective we showed a little bit of maturity and awareness of time in the game, what was required from us, where we needed to be from a field position point of view and to be a little bit braver and more ruthless to go and get that bonus point.
“The players made sure they kept going right up until the end and it was hugely impressive to come away with that bonus point at the death. At the same time I think Darlington Mowden Park will still test a lot of teams throughout the second half of the season.
“I also have to give credit to our squad for their efforts over the Christmas period and the week leading into the scheduled Esher game. With the weather conditions as they were our squad made every effort to train in some capacity, whether that be on pitch, in the gym with the S&C Coach or at a local school hall, we managed to continue to tick over.
“I felt our players were ready to take on Esher, but with the pitch being frozen we couldn’t take the risk of travelling all the way down there with the temperatures as they were, but we look forward to that fixture further down the line.
“Things turn very quickly and we get on to Sale FC, I can’t believe it’s come around so quickly. We went to Sale at the beginning of the season and it was a tough game away from home whilst we were still finding our feet and it was one of those where you lose in the last play of the match.
“We looked at how our players responded, we looked at how much it meant to Sale and I think we are all looking forward to the return fixture at Clifton Lane, but we know it’s going to be a tough game.
“Sale will present us with lots of challenges, I’ve watched their maul, scrum and set pieces and they are areas in which they have grown as the season has gone on. They seem to be defending aggressively and they are probably unlucky to have not picked up a couple more results.
“Following the break and with fixtures being cancelled I think both teams will want to hit the ground running. From a coaching perspective if you don’t prepare then you are preparing to fail, so not being able to fully train is not ideal. We always want to train and to put ourselves in the best position to go and perform on a weekend and our preparation is key in achieving that.”
Titans: 15 Jack Townend, 14 Ronnie Du Randt, 13 Lloyd Hayes, 12 Jamie Cooke, 11 Cuchulain Livingstone, 10 Rob Povey, 9 JB Bruzulier, 1 Charlie Capps ©, 2 Jack Bergmanas, 3 Andrew Foster, 4 Zak Poole ©, 5 Curran Maguire, 6 John Okafor, 7 Travis Gordon, 8 Callum Bustin.
Replacements: 16 Luke Cole, 17 Loma Kivalu, 18 Alastair Donkor, 19 Harry Newborn, 20 James Naylor.
