Rotherham matchday thread

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With 15 minutes to go Roth is bathed in autumn sunshine and there is quite a lot of grass on the pitch!

Leonard pen 0-3

Barrett dg 3-3

Barrett pen 6-3

TRY 6-10

Driving maul again

6-10 with 7 mins to HT

At half time it is still 6-10

The 2nd half is underway.

Pack getting on top!

Leonard pen 6-13

Saull try 6-18

Converted 6-20

Try Roth 11-20 squeaky bum time!

Full time score Rotherham 11-20 Carnegie

A four point win, which is substantially better than we did last season. Lots of errors leading to a scrappy game but the end result means we have 9 points from 2 games with Ealing to come to HC next weekend.

Job done. Next!

Scrappy but always good to win at Roth.

Forwards were excellent. If/when our backs click in the same way, we will put a lot of points on someone.

Can't see how our backs are going to "click" when they don't see the ball. As I have mentioned on several occassions before we are playing to a totally different game plan this season. Effective but not at all attractive. The only time we played with width was first 5 minutes of 2nd half then it stopped. We're not going to attract many fans to watch that style I'm afraid. However, the upside is that we will win games. I would hope that against the lesser teams we may get 3 scores away early on then perhaps our backs can be given the ball. The kicking in general play from half back was nowhere near as good as the Roth halves but they both played well in other aspects.It also has to be said that our defence and discipline was good.

2nd try was scored by Charlie Beech, Saull came off injured with what looked like an achilles injury and we'd used all our replacements. Rotherham scored just after this.
Despite the poor kicking from hand I suspect the stats will show that we dominated possession and territory. The ref has a good game but should of binned a Roth player in both halves for collapsing the maul on the line but didn't.

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I disagree regarding the kicking. Whilst not perfect it was better than last week and in the last 15mins closed out the game.
Backs wise they were drifting and running out of space first half. We need a 12 who maybe just has his head up a bit more.
Forwards were very good. Jack and ryder were excellent. Discipline was great and made roth work for everything. Roth not the team of last season and we are better. Well done. Improved on last week.

Quote:

JDH
.... Discipline was great and made roth work for everything. Roth not the team of last season and we are better. Well done. Improved on last week.

Interviews after the game on the offy. Both Forsyth and Beech look very relaxed.

Happy days!

Quote:

North needs success
Can't see how our backs are going to "click" when they don't see the ball. As I have mentioned on several occassions before we are playing to a totally different game plan this season. Effective but not at all attractive. The only time we played with width was first 5 minutes of 2nd half then it stopped. We're not going to attract many fans to watch that style I'm afraid. However, the upside is that we will win games. I would hope that against the lesser teams we may get 3 scores away early on then perhaps our backs can be given the ball. The kicking in general play from half back was nowhere near as good as the Roth halves but they both played well in other aspects.It also has to be said that our defence and discipline was good.

As with last week I'm only going from the radio commentary but it sounds like the backs didn't get the ball because, after several knock ons or poor decisions, the forwards didn't trust them with it.

The run it from anywhere style of previous seasons is only attractive if you like watching championship rugby imho. If you want to play in the premiership you have to be cleverer than that

A scrappy, close game at Roth so no surprises there. Always good to win there though. As Carnegiette says, it will click for the backs and when it does.....

Personally, I think that Leonard kicks too much out of hand and gives possession away.
He did it loads of times today and did so last week. I much prefer the 'open' running game which we did last season.

Life is what you make of it - you only get 1 so enjoy it

I think will reach more of a balance as the season goes on but more towards what we are doing now than last year. I wanna see them win, thats all that matters.
I think leonard needs to kick better out of hand and a smidgin less.
Joel will probably be the running 10 to mix it up.
The bench is strong this season and was introduced just at the right time today. The pack looks better balanced with mike in the 2nd row and ryder i thought was really solid, good player.
We left points out there. After last season effort there it was top notch.

leeds were workmen like and never looked in danger of losing , personally hope we open up as the season goes on , but it looks like we are going down the route of monster pack / kicking ten bully rugby which might win matches but few new fans.

suppose that shows the new board are serious about going for the prem.

all in all happy to go to a place I usually see us struggle and come home with the win and plenty of room for more from the team.

but if were going to kick the ball away I would like them to chase it

It was good to see our powerful scrum at work and our backs found a bit more space as their pack tired; Rotherham have always been dogged defenders.

However I didn't understand the point of our box-kicking and long kicking. We rarely (twice?) found a long touch and simply handed over possession with little territory gain. We always do better with ball in hand so why stack the odds against ourselves?