National Division 1

26th December 2005

Cross Green

2:00pm Kick off

Otley 17

Titans 22

V

Earth Titans: 15 Errie Claassens, 14 Gareth Brear, 13 Lee Blackett (Capt), 12 WP Strauss, 11 David Strettle, 10 Mike Whitehead (Carter 74), 9 Joe Bedford, 1 Jon Golding (Carey 69) (Jonker 80), 2 Neil Hanna (Conroy 80), 3 John Rawson (Hopcroft 62), 4 Jannie Bornman, 5 Louie McGowan (McComb 74), 6 Scott Donald (Cochrane 63), 7 Hendre Fourie, 8 Chris Hala’Ufia

Replacements

16 Morne Jonker, 17 Anthony Carter, 18 Nigel Conroy, 19 Jarleth Carey, 20 Adam Hopcroft, 21 Neil Cochrane 22 Gareth McComb.

Otley: 15 Shuttleworth, 14 Kitching, 13 Hyndman, 12 Whatmuff, 11 Sovatabua, 10 Binns, 9 Brown, 1 Wring, 2 Luffman, 3 Fullman, 4 Oakes, 5 Williams, 6 Tiffany, 7 Bland, 8 Wilson (Capt)

Replacements

16 Walker, 17 Steele, 18 Stockdale, 19 Parr, 20 Rock, 21 Dench, 22 Mooney.

The beaming smile on Bester’s face at full time told its own tale, however he did translate that into words when he said, “This is by far our best win of the year, our best performance! I’m really happy, I’ve not been as happy all year as I am after this match today.”

Rotherham took the spoils in a keenly and sometimes overly aggressive Yorkshire derby, outscoring the host by three tries to one. Captain fantastic Lee Blackett scored Roth’s first try and man of the match David Strettle chipped in with a magnificent brace, the latter being the match winner one minute into injury time.

It was ex-Roth fly half Simon Binns who had opened the scoring on seven minutes with a neatly taken penalty. Roth responded on 15 minutes with a quick tap from Chris Hala’ufia.

The Tongan made 20 metres into the hosts 22 before finding Mike Whitehead who switched a pass back inside for Captain Blackett to use his power to crash through the defence to score near the sticks. Unbelievably Whitehead missed the conversion.

Binns and Whitehead then traded penalties to give the visitors a narrow 8-6 advantage. On 32 minutes Roth’s pack gave their counterparts a lesson in the art of pick and drive.

After maybe five or six pick and drives which took Roth to within 5 metres of the line, the ball was spun out to Mike Whitehead who picked out Dave Strettle coming in from deep off his wing. Strettle collected and proceeded to pick the gaps through the Otley defence to score under the posts for a fine try. Whitehead knocked over the extras.

Five minutes before the break and Otley’s famous pack conjured up their own try. A line out 15 metres from the Roth line was driven forward and although Roth defended well, the relentless pressure told when skipper Glen Wilson was driven over near the corner. Binns missed the conversion.

Half Time: Otley 11-15 Rotherham

Rotherham made an inexplicable sloppy start to the second half and within fifteen minutes found themselves trailing 17-15 after Binns had added two further penalties.

Otley reverted to their famous ten man game and mixed this up with a combination of kicks to the corner and sending up bombs to test the full back – all of which Claassens coped with remarkably well.

Roth had four kicks at goal from penalties in the second half, three from Whitehead and one from WP Strauss, all of them disappointingly missed the target. Credit to Mike Whitehead however, he didn’t allow of off-day with the boot affect what was otherwise a fine display.

Time was running out and it appeared that Roth would rue the missed penalties, but this young committed bunch never knows when they’re beaten. As the clock entered the first minute of injury time Roth won a line out 25 metres from the Otley line.

From the resulting maul, replacement Morne Jonker dug the ball out and found Strettle at stand-off. As the defence pushed up Strettle sped off and broke the line, as the full back Shuttleworth approached he chipped perfectly over and won the foot race to touch down under the posts to win the game for Roth. WP Strauss converted to close the game out at 22-17.

Final Score: Otley17-22 Rotherham

It would be unfair and not true to say David Strettle won this match for Rotherham as rugby is truly a team game. But when you have someone with the pace, intelligence and quality of Strettle, it certainly helps the cause.

It wasn’t the “perfect” game that Bester continues to strive for and they were lots in there for this week’s video analysis, but you kind of understood what Bester meant when he said it was the best performance of the season so far.

Otley are past masters at slowing a game down with their ten man rugby and live on the very precipice of the laws of the game, often crossing that line! There were lots happening in and out of the contact areas which the officials failed to see.

Otley prop Fullman can count himself fortunate not to follow Rotherham’s Neil Hanna to the bin. Fullman caught Hanna with a peach of a punch before getting one back for his troubles. However referee Wigglesworth only “saw” Hanna’s misdemeanor!

Credit must go to Rotherham for showing almost perfect discipline under very difficult circumstances. Now it’s on to the home game with Nottingham and another opportunity for laying a few ghosts to rest.

Full post match comments to follow.

Harlequins  47-23 London Welsh

Plymouth Albion 23-26 Cornish Pirates

Playing Tuesday 27th December

Coventry 0-0 Bedford  

Doncaster 0-0 Sedgley Park

Newbury 0-0 Exeter

Nottingham 0-0 Bees

National Division 1

Roth v Nottingham 1 January at Earth Arena.

kick off 2.00pm