Newbury 17-36 Titans

National Division 1

4th March 2006

Monks Lane

Kick Off 3.00pm

Newbury 17

Titans 36

V

Earth Titans: 15 Errie Claassens, 14 Gilan Carruthers, 13 WP Strauss, 12 Ledowyk Strauss (Tom Allen 74), 11 John Holtby, 10 Mike Whitehead, 9 Joe Bedford (Morne Jonker 78), 1 Jarleth Carey (Jamie Kilbane 70), 2 Nigel Conroy (Neil Hanna 59), 3 Adam Hopcroft (Sam Walsh 78), 4 Jannie Bornman, 5 Louis McGowan (Gareth McComb 77), 6 Hendre Fourie (Chris Hala’Ufia 64), 7 Neil Cochrane (Capt), 8 Scott Donald

All Replacements used

Newbury: 15 Roberts, 14 Tombleson, 13 Aiano, 12 Bell, 11 Nutt, 10 Bingham, 9 Smaje, 1 Carter, 2 Cooper, 3 Cullins, 4 Radbourne, 5 Hart, 6 Styles, 7 Scothern, 8 Cracknell

Replacements: 16 Simpson-Daniel, 17 Baxter, 18 Briggs, 19 Faulkner, 20 Dalgleish, 21 Davis, 22 D Smith

Post match a content Andre Bester said, “I was pleased with the performance and very proud of the guys today and I take my hat off to them. We did slacken off a bit in the second half and we became too defensive, but the boys did a fantastic job and blew them away.”

Rotherham blasted out of the blocks and found themselves 7-0 to the good after just two minutes. A five metre Roth scrum got Newbury going backwards before Donald peeled off at the base to crash over near the corner. Whitehead made a good conversion.

On 15 minutes after a sustained period of Roth pressure, good interplay between Whitehead and Lodewyk Strauss saw the former break through for a try under the posts. Whitehead converted.

Six minutes later a rampant Rotherham set up another 5 metre scrum and once again Donald peeled off from the base. Although tackled just short of the line, Donald showed good strength to bulldoze over for an unconverted try.

On 27 minutes Roth secured the bonus point! Claassens collected just inside his own 10 metre line and proceeded to race off. As the Newbury defence pushed up Claassens trademark side-step was deployed and as a result he left two men floundering and a gaping hole appeared. Claassens then found support from Bornman who literally stopped and cut back inside five metres from the line before going over for a fine unconverted try.

On the half hour mark Gillan Carruthers had a “try” disallowed for a forward pass, however just before the break Carruthers did get on the score-sheet. Good work from Donald and Bedford found Carruthers on the right wing and although tackled just short of the line, he showed good strength and great tenacity to touch down next to the flag. Whitehead just missed the difficult conversion.

Half Time: Newbury 0-31 Titans

Unsurprisingly Newbury showed a lot more endeavour in the second period and it took Rotherham almost twenty five minutes to get their hands on the ball in a forward position. By that time however the host had scored three unanswered tries.

Rob Scothern, Glenn Cooper and Tom Tombleson were the try-scorers for Newbury, with Martin Nutt converting just the one. It has to be said though, at no time was it considered that the hosts would conjure up a remarkable result.

Rotherham finished much the stronger and scored their sixth try of the game through on-trial Ulsterman Gillan Carruthers, after WP Strauss collected turnover ball, drew the tackle and slipped the young Ulsterman in. Whitehead hit the post from the touchline with his conversion attempt.

Final Score: Newbury 17-36 Titans

Rotherham will be very pleased with their performance despite the host’s comeback early in the second half. The forwards were outstanding and set up a strong platform throughout for the backs to play some neat rugby.

Gillan Carruthers impressed on only his second outing for the club and this despite not playing much rugby in the last nine months due to back-packing around Australia. If his progress continues, a contract should be a formality for next season.

As Rotherham prepare for the Harlequins game this week, they will be eager to reproduce their first half display against Newbury and not the first twenty minutes of the second half. If they can manage that for the full eighty, then who knows – maybe we will witness the biggest upset of the season.

Attendance:  580

Other Weekend Results

Sun 5th March

Cornish Pirates  21-13 Bees

National Division 1

Harlequins v Roth 11 March at The Stoop
.

kick off 3.00pm

Page sponsored by xfactordates.com