Roth gets off the mark!

By Roth Admin
December 21 2003

Rotherham Titans lost at home to London Irish by 10 points to 15. The game was played in atrocious conditions and Titans collected their first point of the season. Rotherham’s performance was by far their best of the season and they can consider themselves unlucky not to have secured the victory.

The game started in what can best be described as monsoon conditions and there were plenty of early handling errors. However on just five minutes Irish took the lead, Mapletoft who had tormented the Titans earlier in the season was on hand again. He made a break in midfield and veered right to offload to Horak who dived for the line almost five metres away, but such were the weather conditions his momentum carried him over. John Benson was perhaps out of position and could have done better. Mapletoft missed the conversion.

For the first 20 minutes Rotherham were generally on the back foot, although on 17 minutes a superb break by Jason Keyter opened up the Irish defence. It was a pity that no other Roth player was on hand to give support. Soon after a good break by Stortoni once again broke the Irish defence, but again support was not immediately to hand and the opportunity was snuffed out. Then Easterby broke on 23 minutes and threw a beautiful long flat pass out to Pieters on the right wing. Unfortunately for the winger making his debut he knocked on in contact when a chance of going over in the corner was a possibility.

As the first half progressed so did Rotherham. They were competing all over the park in all areas, every player seemed committed to the cause. As the game went in to first half injury time Rotherham were only losing by five points and there was cause for optimism and a possible upset. But as has happened time and again this season, Rotherham fell asleep. In the 3rd minute of injury time Irish replacement Paul Gustard broke from a maul, found a gap and ran unopposed 30 metres to touch down for Irish’s 2nd try. Mapletoft made the easy conversion.

There was still time for more drama in the 1st half. Just a minute later and Rotherham’s No 8 Brad Mcleod-Hendersn was shown the yellow card for killing the ball about 40 metres from goal. From the resulting penalty Mapletoft converted the difficult chance.

Half Time: Rotherham Titans 0 London Irish 15

Just 2 minutes in to the 2nd half and Mapletoft had the chance to extend the visitors lead when Rotherham were penalised for infringing at a maul. Surprisingly the fly-half missed what must be considered an easy opportunity.

On 49 minutes Jon Benson got the host’s off the mark when slotting over a penalty after Irish were penalised for coming in from the side. Rotherham were now starting to put Irish under considerable pressure and Chris Johnson was very unlucky when he charged down Horak’s clearance only for the ball to bounce in to touch just before he had chance to collect and go over for an easy try.

Rotherham continued to dominate and Irish were virtually prisoners in their own half for much of the 2nd period, but their defence was well organised and time after time they snuffed out the Titans sorties. On 75 minutes Rotherham finally got rewarded for their endeavour. Titan’s replacement Jones made the initial break and offloaded to Michael Wood on the left wing, who from 50 metres out sprinted in to just make the touchdown under late pressure from Paul Sackey. Phil Jones made the very difficult conversion from the far touchline to narrow the gap to just 5 points.

This set up a frenetic final five minutes, but Titans were unable to set up another try scoring opportunity.

Final Score: Rotherham Titans 10 London Irish 15


This was Rotherham’s best display of the season so far without a doubt. Credit must be given to the new recruits, but the established players more than played their part too, including the replacements. If Director of Rugby Steph Nel can build on this promising start then Rotherham’s first victory of the season can only be just around the corner.

A man of the match cannot be selected this week as all involved played out of their skins.

Match Referee: T Spreadbury

Attendance: 1,911