National Division 1

30th December 2006

Clifton Lane

Titans 22

Leeds 19

Earth Titans

15 Mike Whitehead, 14 Showan Smith, 13 Brendan Burke, 12 Shane Stewart, 11 Errie Claassens, 10 Gareth Steenson, 9 Joe Bedford (Capt), 1 Sam Walsh (Carey 71), 2 Neil Hanna, 3 Adam Hopcroft, 4 Erik Lund, 5 Louie McGowan, 6 Hendre Fourie, 7 Barry Jacobsz, 8 Jannie Bornman.

Replacements: 16 Gareth McComb, 17 Jarleth Carey, 18 Nigel Conroy, 19 Neil Cochrane, 20 Stuart Corsar, 21 Bernard Hennessey, 22 Jamie Blackwood.

Leeds Tykes

15 Leigh Hinton, 14 Chris Hughes, 13 Tom Rock, 12 Andy Tuilagi, 11 John Holtby, 10 Jonny Hepworth, 9 Darren Edwards, 1 Mike McDonald, 2 Rob Rawlinson, 3 Colin Noon, 4. Stuart Hooper (Capt), 5 Kearnan Myall, 6 Jon Dunbar, 7 Martin Schusterman, 8 Rhys Oakley.

Replacements: 16 Pablo Bouza, 17 James Parkes, 18 Danny Paul, 19 Mark Lock, 20 Jacob Rauluni, 21 Andre Snyman, 22 Richard Vasey.

The victory was a well deserved one against a very good side and the triumph throws Rotherham back into the Championship equation.

A satisfied Andre Bester said afterwards, “We’ve lost certain matches this year, we’ve lost against Plymouth, Pirates and Doncaster, all because we were not tactically astute enough, we didn’t learn. But today the players have shown me they have learned.

“We gave them an easy try just before half time, but in the second half we knuckled down and we knew that we had to work hard. We still made mistakes but I was pleased in the way we backed each other up and we didn’t shoot ourselves in the foot.

Although pleased with the victory Bester went on, “I am not going to get carried away with this result and neither will the players. This result does however put us back into business and that’s the important thing. It wasn’t a great performance from us today, but it did show us that we can play the kicking game – we weren’t bad at that at certain stages.

Did Bester have doubts about a victory at the break – apparently not, “At half time we were very positive we would win the game. We’d had 25 minutes where we had dominated them in the first half and they had five minutes where they scored 13 points. We also knew we had them up front and we had them in the pack. Our pack was brilliant today, but everyone got stuck in and we were very aggressive.

“Hats off to Leeds though, they tried to play rugby, but today I thought we came away with what we deserved.”

Kicking machine Gareth Steenson explained in the dressing room afterwards “It was incredibly satisfying today, especially after the last couple of weeks we’ve had. This will give the boys a great lift; you could see the emotion at the end of the game when we got the victory. It’s a seriously big boost for us.

“At 16-10 down at the break we weren’t disheartened; we’d played some very good rugby for 35 minutes in the first half. We had a lot to build on and we were quite confident going out for the second half.

Steenson went on to give some insight into the spirit that exists between the players, “After the last two weeks we’ve taken a lot of flak, but the boys have stuck together. People have stuck their hands up and taken responsibility, we’ve had a real honest week and it’s been good for us. Now we can build from here on in.

“We are back in the mix, but we’ve got to just take every week as they come. This result has shown that we can mix it with the big boys and there’s no reason why we can’t go on from here and put in a real challenge. But we’ve got to keep working hard, we can’t think today’s result is the pinnacle. Every team has to be treated with the same respect.”

So no one at Roth is getting carried away – quite right too. There are still twelve games to go and surely plenty more twists and turns along the way. But if Roth can reproduce the same courage, commitment and self-belief in all twelve, it will take a very good side to beat them.

The game itself was played on a very heavy Clifton Lane pitch. An overnight deluge had required the local fire service to pump standing water off the pitch mid-morning. It was not going to be a day for running rugby.

Ten minutes in Roth took the lead after referee Tim Wigglesworth reversed a penalty decision giving Gareth Steenson an easy three pointer. The fracas in which Leeds conceded the penalty showed the unity within the Roth camp and the old Rotherham attitude of – “you take one of us on, you take us all on!”

Soon after however Leeds leveled through full back Leigh Hinton after Roth were caught off side in front of their posts.

Undeterred, Rotherham continued to build pressure which culminated in Mike Whitehead making a fine break. The ball was then moved wide to Showan Smith who was tackled by Jon Dunbar. Dunbar was rightly sin binned for not rolling away and preventing quick Rotherham ball.

Unsurprisingly Roth opted for the scrum from the resulting penalty. With a man advantage in the set piece Roth bullied their way towards the line before Rhys Oakley dived in to prevent a try. Referee Wigglesworth quite rightly awarded Roth a penalty try which Steenson converted from in front.

Roth had - if not dominated proceedings – then most certainly had the edge throughout the first half. However a crazy last five first half minutes turned the game on its head.

On 35 and 37 minutes respectively, Hinton tagged on two kickable penalties to reduce the visitors deficit to 10-9. Then from a line out 30 metres from the Roth line, quick Leeds ball culminated with open side Martin Schusterman crashing through to score under the posts. Hinton converted to give Leeds a 16-10 advantage.

Moments later and had Leeds centre Andy Tuilagi off-loaded to one of the two spare men on his outside, Leeds probably would have galloped off into the distance. However Tuilagi went for glory and ended up knocking the ball on for a Roth scrum.

After having a fine first half Roth were probably the happier to hear the half time whistle. The Leeds backline, quiet for the most part, showed in those last five minutes tremendous pace and some clever running lines in very difficult conditions.

Those conditions worsened as the second half got under way and it was almost impossible to play any kind of decent rugby. As the error count grew for both sides it was Leeds who gave away the penalties that mattered.

On 49 minutes Steenson tagged an easy three points after Leeds had been penalised for obstruction. But on the hour mark Steenson showed his class with a wonderful penalty conversion from 45 metres out and just in from touch. That leveled the scores at 16 apiece.

Hinton and Steenson then traded penalties again to move the score onto 19 each. As time was running out the large home crowd could sense an upset was on the cards and almost took the roof off the shed, such was the noise coming out of it.

Two minutes from time once again Leeds were found wanting in the set scrum and were pinged for an infringement. Up stepped Mr. Cool (Gareth Steenson) to knock over the wining points.

Roth went looking for the try which would have sent Leeds home with nothing, but fair play to the Tykes, the defended resolutely and returned home with the loosing bonus point.

Final Score: Rotherham 22-19 Leeds

Roth produced an outstanding team performance with almost everyone contributing effectively. The pack was back to its very best, Mike Whitehead just keeps on getting better and better and young Steenson continues to show nerves of steel when kicking at the posts.

This team never fails to astound as they continue to punch well above their weight. They may or may not win this league, but it promises to be an exiting journey along the way to finding out.

Attendance: 2719

Other Weekend Results

Sat 30 December 06

Coventry 29-12 Nottingham
London Welsh 6-13 Moseley
Otley 3-34 Exeter
Pertemps Bees 8-17 Cornish Pirates
Plymouth Albion 22-8 Bedford
Waterloo 0-44 Doncaster

National Division 1

Rotherham v Newbury - 6 January at Clifton Lane.

kick off 2.00pm