Exeter 29-23 Titans

National Division 1

11th February 2006

County Ground

Kick Off 3.00pm

Exeter 29

Titans 23

V

Earth Titans: 15 Errie Claassens, 14 Tom Allen (Lee Blackett 54), 13 Ledowyk Strauss, 12 WP Strauss, 11 John Holtby, 10 Mike Whitehead, 9 Joe Bedford (Morne Jonker 75), 1 Jon Golding (Jamie Kilbane 11), 2 Neil Hanna (Nigel Conroy 60), 3 Adam Hopcroft (Sam Walsh 75), 4 Jannie Bornman, 5 Louis McGowan (Gareth McComb 63), 6 Hendre Fourie 7 Neil Cochrane (Capt), 8 Scott Donald (Chris Hala’Ufia 63).

All Replacements used

Exeter: 15 S Ward, 14 J Luff, 13 J Fatialofa, 12 J Fatialofa, 11 G Kingdom, 10 T Yapp, 9 K Barrett, 1 S Bennett, 2 S Blythe (Capt), 3 G Davis, 4 C Bentley, 5 I Brown, 6 G Willis, 7 A Miller, 8 R Baxter.

Replacements: 16 S Jenkins, 17 R Liddington, 18 M Gabey, 19 T Walker, 20 I Wilson, 21 A Staniforth, 22 A Murdoch.

Post match an upbeat Andre Bester said, “I’m not interested in where we are now; I’m more interested in where we are in twelve months. These are the stepping stones that we have to cross to get where we want to be.

“The biggest positive today is Jamie Kilbane! Jamie was outstanding and he proved he can not only play at this level, he can outplay players that are on big money and have been at this level for a long time.

“There are no negatives today and I’m not frustrated at the result, it’s about the development of the players and we are doing that right now. It was not just Jamie today, the players around him stepped up and that was the beauty of the whole thing.

“Our kicking was not good today, we couldn’t hit a barn door, we missed 13 easy points and if we had taken them we would have won the game. There’s no doubt we should have won this game today.”

Rotherham started much the brighter and were five points to the good after just three minutes. A Mike Whitehead cross-field kick started the move and when the forwards re-cycled the ball Whitehead was on hand again to break the defence. Adam Hopcroft took it on to the line and then Jon Golding popped up to crash over. Whitehead missed the extras.

Exeter fly half Tony Yapp nibbled at Roth’s lead on nine minutes with a neatly taken penalty. Yapp went on for a 100% conversion rate to demonstrate the importance of this facet of the game.

Back came Rotherham with a combination of excellent open running rugby and a dominant pack of forwards. This combination was rewarded on 25 minutes after a series of pick and drives from the Roth pack was finished off by scrum half Joe Bedford, who nipped over for his 2^nd try of the season. The extras were missed.

Just after the half hour mark Yapp slotted another Exeter penalty from in front of the posts after Roth were penalised for hands in at the ruck.

A minute either side of the forty Mike Whitehead demonstrated his potential as a kicker. Two penalties, one from 45 metres and the other from 48 metres were kicked superbly and sailed straight through posts to give Roth a ten point advantage.

Half Time: Exeter 6-16 Roth

What happened to Roth at the beginning of the second half is a mystery, they were just not at the races. Poor decision making, poor kicking and sloppy individual errors allowed Exeter to score twenty points in twenty minutes.

First Yapp knocked over two penalties, then tries from Stephen Ward and Mark Fatialofa – both converted – saw Exeter steam into a 26-16 lead.

Rotherham will be disappointed with the two tries as both were as a result of very poor tackling. It was alarming how easily the Exeter backs breezed through the Roth defence, when for most of the match they had defended magnificently when called to do so.

Once again however, Rotherham showed tremendous character, scoring a magnificent try fifteen minutes from time. The ball went from Bedford to Whitehead to Hala’ufia to Claassens and back inside to WP Strauss who rounded off an outstanding move to score near the posts. Whitehead tagged on the extras.

Two minutes later Roth conceded a penalty just inside the Exeter half. Up stepped Tony Yapp and from 51 metres he brilliantly slotted the ball over.

In the last ten minutes of the game Roth franticly went in search of a converted try which would have deservedly seen them win the game. Much of that time saw Roth camped in the hosts twenty two. But a combination of admirable Exeter defending and Rotherham’s knack of knocking the ball on, meant the search would be a forlorn one.

Full Time: Exeter 29-23 Roth

Leaving the ground you knew this was one of those games Rotherham should have won, but threw away. But this is still a learning curve for the young Rotherham players and if lessons are learnt, next season could turn out to be a very special one indeed.

The positives – Jamie Kilbane emerged to show he can step up to this level and more than compete. Also there was a host of big players not in the starting 15 and despite this, Rotherham for much of the game were outstanding.

And once again Neil Cochrane was awesome; he appeared to be in every ruck and maul, turned over copious amounts of Exeter ball and was a real pain in the Exeter neck all afternoon.

Post match new skipper Cochrane confirmed he had re-signed for next season. He then spoke about how he felt at being made captain of Rotherham and gave his thoughts on the Exeter game.

“It’s a great honour to captain this Rotherham side, I know I’m only young but I captained the Scotland under 21’s and that’s the biggest honour of my life so far. But to come to a prestigious club like Rotherham and be given the chance to captain the side – it’s massive.

“It’s not hard to captain a side that’s been led by Lee Blackett because he’s done a fantastic job. Also it’s made easier for me because of the type of players I’ve got around me. There’s not just one leader on the pitch there’s several.

“When Andre spoke to me and asked if I’d do it, I jumped at the opportunity. I’ll just try and steer the club in the right direction and hopefully Lee will be with us next week and he can take the reins back over.

“First half was good and we started off well but in the second half we went out and it was as if we were cold. We threw the game away more than they won it. It was just silly mistakes that let us down and again we have to go back and look at ourselves. We have to be more mature to be able to kill off games and when we get into certain positions to take the points.”

Attendance: 1200

Other Weekend Results

Coventry  30-29 Bees

London Welsh 30-21 Nottingham

Newbury 27-18 Plymouth Albion

Sedgley Park 7-19 Otley

Playing Sun 12th February

Cornish Pirates  26-21 Bedford

Doncaster 0-45 Harlequins

National Division 1

Roth v Bedford 18 February at the Earth Arena
.

kick off 2.00pm

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