By Roth Admin
April 8 2004

Rotherham Titans gained their 2nd victory of the season in heartbreaking fashion today. The Titans beat Viadana of Italy by 22 – 21, but exit the competition on aggregate by 52 – 53. Viadana ended Rotherham’s European dream with some resilient defending and some cutting play through their backs. Rotherham got off to a perfect start after just 2 minutes, when Jon Benson converted a penalty after Viadana had collapsed the scrum 40 metres out. Rotherham built on a promising start when Benson again, scored his 2nd penalty on 6 minutes after Viadana had been adjudged offside.

Viadana cut the deficit to 3 points when, from a penalty 35 metres out and in front of the Rotherham posts, Casper Steyn made the hosts pay for drifting offside.

Rotherham had settled in to the game better and were playing some tremendous rugby. One move on 18 minutes saw the ball travel through 6 or 7 pair of hands, with a neat reverse pass by loose head prop nick Lloyd, being the highlight. All of which resulted in Viadana giving away a penalty for killing the ball. After Gregor Hayter was yellow carded for his crime, Jon Benson stepped up to convert the penalty.

Then on the half hour mark and totally against the run of play, Viadana broke from their own 10 metre line and ripped the Titans defence apart, culminating with the visitors full back Casper Steyn going over in the corner. Steyn missed the difficult conversion. Rotherham would have been mightily disappointed with their week defence in conceding the try.

Just 3 minutes later and things got worse for Rotherham when blind side flanker Leon Greeff was sin-binned for killing the ball. Then on 38 minutes Viadana exposed Rotherham’s defensive frailties again when Gregor Hayter broke just inside his own half and fed Bezzi who took the ball on before slipping in Italian International Matthew Phillips to score near the right corner. Steyn made the conversion to take the visitors in to the break, leading by 15 points to 9.

Viadana made the brighter start to the 2nd half and increased their lead after 3 minutes when Steyn took his personal tally to 13 points when he converted an easy penalty after Rotherham were penalised for being offside. On 52 minutes Benson took his and the teams tally to 12 points when he too converted an easy penalty.

The 54th minute saw the games 3rd yellow card when Viadana’s Aussie 2nd rower Tom Bowman was sent to the bin for killing the game. The Rotherham pack that had been dominating up to then – pushed on. Some intricate passing by Harrison inspired Rotherham in to the Italians 22. Then Rotherham stole Viadana line out on the 5m line, Geraint Lewis took the ball forward and offloaded in the tackle for Jonathan Pendlebury to bludgeon over for his 1st try for the Titans. Benson made good with the conversion.

Rotherham were gathering momentum and as a result of the pressure exerted, Viadana conceded a penalty wide out on their right. Up stepped Benson and in difficult conditions drew his kick in from the right to take Rotherham in to an overall lead by 52 – 50. However on 71 minutes Viadana nudged themselves back in to the lead, when once again Rotherham were caught offside. Casper Steyn made no mistake with the kick.

With 5 minutes to go the Titans rallied once more and their pack – which performed splendidly, all afternoon – made 20 metres up field with a terrific drive, ending with Viadana coming in from the side to concede the penalty. With obvious pressure on Benson’s shoulders, he set himself for the important kick. From around 25 metres out and 10 metres in from the left touch he unfortunately pushed the ball across the posts. And with that the Titans European campaign was over, leaving them to concentrate on the Premiership.

After the match Rotherham’s Director of Rugby Steph Nel said, “We are all very disappointed, it’s a win, but it doesn’t feel like a win. It’s like a funeral in there because we wanted to win the Shield. Our set piece has improved tremendously, but it’s what we are doing with the ball afterwards – that didn’t go well today. We had two opportunities with an open try line and we just knocked the ball on. And they capitalized on our mistakes and scored 60m tries, we should have learnt from that. We controlled the game well for the 1st 30 minutes. We probably went for an expansive game a little bit too early and the expansive game turned on us.

I’m very happy with the way our pack performed, their pack are no slouches - they are full of Internationals. But it’s what we do with the ball that we win. That’s the key area that we need to address and we need to address it rapidly. The backs as a unit didn’t function as well as they are capable of. I also think that our defence can get better. However our set pieces are going really well now and I’m pleased with that progress. That’s the foundations of good rugby.”


Viadana Rotherham Titans

Casper Steyne 15 Bernardo Stortoni
Keine Robertson 14 Anthony Elliott
Andrea Masi 13 Phil Jones
Sandro Ceppolino 12 Mike Umaga
Thomas Beim 11 Michael Wood
Blair Feeney 10 Jon Benson
Harley Crane 9 Charlie Harrison
Mario Savi (Capt) 1 Nick Lloyd
Victor Jimenez 2 Chris Johnson (Capt)
Emanuele Brancalion 3 Colin Noon
Christian Bezzi 4 Glen Kenworthy
Tom Bowman 5 Luke Gross
Matthew Phillips 6 Leon Greeff
Lance Persico 7 Jonathan Pendlebury
Gregor Hayter 8 Geraint Lewis

Replacements

Ermes De Bellis 16 Simon Bunting
Phillips Gazzola 17 John Rawson
Fabio Gumiero 18 Craig Short
Federico Angeloni 19 Matt Rhodes
Steven Bortolussi 20 Jon Pritchard
Andrea Accorsi 21 Peter Jorgensen
Sandro Ceppolino 22 Joe Ewens

Attendance – 1,153

Man of the Match – Charlie Harrison

Referee – Christophe Berdos

Touch Judge 1 – Jean-Michel Schutz

Touch Judge 2 – Eric Molier

4th Official – Don Helme