Titans 58-20 Bees

By Roth Admin
September 8 2006

Match Report is courtesy of Michael Temple from the clubs official Website at www.rotherhamrugby.co.uk A stern dressing down from Head Coach Andre Bester seemed to pay dividends as the Titans put on an accomplished second-half display to put the Bees to the sword.

First-half tries from Gareth Brear and Scott Donald helped set up a 17-10 advantage at the break but Bester felt that his side were not fulfilling their potential and demanded more from his players in a heated half-time discussion.

“It is not my job to be the players’ friend. I have to get everything out of them and today I lost it with them at half-time,” said Bester, who was pleased with the response his outburst attracted as they cruised to a 58-20 win.

“There were some dreadful individual performances in the first-half and I was very hard on them at half-time. We improved in the second-half but we still made mistakes that would have been punished by a better side.”

Fly-half Mike Whitehead made light work of horrendous kicking conditions, successfully striking eight out of ten from the tee despite a howling wind at The Earth Arena.

Tu Tamarua and Rob Walton returned to familiar surroundings in the Bees line-up but made little progress against a resilient home pack. Bester substituted young props Jamie Kilbane and Sam Walsh in the first-half but announced plans to start them against London Welsh next week.

The ball carrying ability of Jannie Bornman and Chris Hala’Ufia provided an unstoppable angle of attack throughout the match and, at times, the Titans oozed class.

Channelled offensive aggression saw a run of five tries in an intense 22 minute spell mid-way through the second-half as they put the game well beyond doubt. Highlights of this period of dominance included a route one score from Bornman, a neat step and finish from centre Tom Allen, an opportunistic solo effort from stand-in captain Joe Bedford and a good finish from Lodewyk Strauss after Morne Jonker’s off-load.

Scott Donald continued his remarkable scoring run with as try either side of half-time and confirmed that he had committed his future to the club after the game.

“We stretched them as the game went on and got better and better as they faded but we recognised at half-time that we needed to up our performance and then put it into action,” said Donald.

“We were hurting after last week and felt that we let ourselves down a bit so this result is for the supporters.”

Gareth Brear, given a starting berth ahead of John Holtby, opened the scoring with a try from short range inside three minutes and Harlequins-bound 8-ma Chris Hala’Ufia rounded off the win with a hard running try in the final minute.