National Division 1

11th March 2006

The Stoop

Kick Off 3.00pm

Harlequins 50

Titans 10

V

Earth Titans: 15 Errie Claassens, 14 Gillan Carruthers, 13 WP Strauss (Tom Allen 48), 12 Lodewyk  Strauss, 11  John Holtby, 10 Mike  Whitehead, 9 Joe Bedford (Morne Jonker 68), 1 Jarleth Carey (Jamie Kilbane 66), 2 Neil Hanna (Nigel Conroy 66), 3 Adam Hopcroft (Sam Walsh 77), 4 Jannie Bornman, 5 Gareth McComb (Louis McGowan 59), 6 Hendre Fourie (Chris Hala’Ufia 63), 7 Neil Cochrane (Capt), 8 Scott Donald

All Replacements Used

Harlequins: 15 Williams, 14 Harder, 13 Greenwood, 12 Duffy, 11 Keogh, 10 Jarvis, 9 So'oialo, 1 Jones, 2 Richards, 3 Ward, 4 Evans, 5 Miall, 6 Easter, 7 Sherriff (Capt), 8 Diprose

Replacements: 16 Croall, 17 Nebbett, 18 Bouza, 19 Guest, 20 Mehrtens, 21 Deane, 22 Monye

Titans skipper Neil Cochrane said post match, “We did create a lot of chances, but at the end of the day we just weren’t as clinical as Harlequins were, whenever they sniffed a chance they ended up getting points from it. Whereas we created a lot of chances but maybe our final pass wasn’t as good as it could have been.

We were turned over quite a lot, but I think that comes down to experience, making sure we keep the ball. We said from the start that we were going to be running the ball everywhere and I think we showed that and we did keep the ball for long spells of the game, but then we were sloppy and we went and threw it away at crucial times.”

Rotherham made a superb start to the game with some outstanding expansive rugby played at pace. Mike Whitehead put Roth 3-0 up with a penalty after just two minutes and Harlequins had to defend desperately on eight minutes to prevent the visitors going over for a try. In fact Quins only had two moments of possession in the first ten minutes and promptly proceeded to turn over ball.

But any hopes Roth had of causing a major upset didn’t last very long. On 12 minutes Quins fly-half Adrian Jarvis levelled with a penalty and five minutes later Steve So’oialo went over for the first try of the afternoon. Jarvis converted.

Almost from the restart Tom Williams raced onto quick ball down the left flank to add the second try which Jarvis once again converted. Quins were now getting into gear and looking to step up the pace, however on 24 minutes WP Strauss intercepted a pass around his own 22 and ran the length of the pitch to touch down under the sticks. Whitehead converted in front to reduce the arrears to 17-10.

Seven minutes before the break Scott Donald kick on down the left flank, the ball deflected off a Quins player and was collected by Nick Easter. Easter made good ground and then slick handling from Tony Diprose and George Harder culminated in Jarvis going in for a fine third try. Jarvis dusted himself down to convert.

Half Time: Harlequins 24-10 Titans

Although second half Rotherham had their moments, in particular good breaks from Morne Jonker, Mike Whitehead and Ledowyk Strauss, Harlequins never really looked like conceding another try.

Indeed the hosts went on to score four further tries through Diprose, Harder, Easter and Keogh, with Jarvis converting two and replacement Andrew Mehrtens converting one.

The final Harlequins try on 73 minutes was an unusual one to say the least. Harlequins bound Chris Hala’ufia lost the ball to flying winger Ugo Monye and quick as you like Monye raced off leaving the Roth defence in his wake.

But Monye thought he’d heard the referee’s whistle and stopped and put the ball on the ground. As he turned around and looked back up field, he realised that was not the case, so he went back for the ball. As he was tackled he managed to find support on his inside from Simon Keogh, the winger promptly raced off to score under the posts.

Final Score: Harlequins 50-10 Titans

Obviously Rotherham are disappointed with the score line, but it shouldn’t be all doom and gloom. Rotherham played some good attractive rugby and the players now know the standard they need to aspire to. Credit must also go to Harlequins; they were extremely clinical whenever opportunities arose.

As Andre Bester said, “We knew we could come here and try to keep the score low and be very conservative and just be very defensive, but that was not the idea. We came here to be very positive because that part of player development.”

Bester makes a good point, in terms of player development where’s the benefit of going to Harlequins to try and keep the score low and play a totally defensive game with lots of kicking – none!

Rotherham now need to dust themselves down and go and win their last five games of the season and secure the fourth spot in the league. They are more than capable of doing so and who at Roth would have taken that back in August?

Rotherham Head Coach Andre Bester

“There were loads of positives out of that, we didn’t come here to close the match out, and we didn’t come here to kick the ball like a typical National one side. We said from the start we would be positive and if you have a good look at the tries that were scored, there were two tries scored that were good tries. The others came off our mistakes being very expansive.

We ran the ball from everywhere and I don’t have a problem with that because we’ve got nothing to win and nothing to loose. The only thing we can gain is development of players. And if you want to develop a player you don’t do it by letting him kick the ball away all the time.

We know where we want to go to next year, we knew we could come here and try to keep the score low and be very conservative and just be very defensive, but that was not the idea. We came here to be very positive because that part of player development. If we would have won the match that way – great, if you get beaten that way, in terms of player development, it’s not the end of the world. But yes, I’m not happy with the result.

The positives are, wherever we played, we played good rugby where we kept the ball and put width onto it. Sometimes we were too expansive because we were a little naive to where the holes were. The holes were around the ten and twelve position, because that’s where Ledowyk ran through two or three times.

But hey, Rotherham Earth Titans are at this stage in a position where nobody else is, there’s no other club that are just planning for next season.”

The last question posed to Andre was, “Was it you who blew the whistle when Ugo Monye broke through and then stopped,” to which he replied, “No, but I would have done if I’d had one!”

Rotherham Captain Neil Cochrane

“We did create a lot of chances, but at the end of the day we just weren’t as clinical as Harlequins were, whenever they sniffed a chance they ended up getting points from it. Whereas we created a lot of chances but maybe our final pass wasn’t as good as it could have been.

We were turned over quite a lot, but I think that comes down to experience, making sure we keep the ball. We said from the start that we were going to be running the ball everywhere and I think we showed that and we did keep the ball for long spells of the game, but then we were sloppy and we went and threw it away at crucial times.

I just said in the changing room, week in week out we always start well, good first half. But the second half comes around; I don’t know if it’s a mental thing but we go out and make the same mistakes week in and week out and everyone’s agreed with that. I think we all need to have a look at ourselves to cut out these mistakes, because it’s killing us.

But Harlequins are a class side and they showed that with how clinical they were with their opportunities and as soon as they got a sniff of the line they took it and you can’t take that away from them. They were good in the mauls and they countered us very well there. Our mauling has been our big positive this year, we’ve destroyed teams, but they countered it very well by taking the first man to the deck.

We’ve had problems defending mauls, but it’s not a major problem we are adequate at doing it, but as I say next year we need to be amazing at doing it, not just adequate. And that’s the standard that we are going to set for next year.

Harlequins have set a high standard and we need to reach that next year and I don’t see why we can’t do that next season. Andre is recruiting well at the moment, I know of a few players that he’s brought in and they are quality. There’s no reason why we can’t hit the season running come September, we know what’s required now to win the league.

The mood in the changing room is really flat, anyone who pulls on the Rotherham colours, you’ve got a lot of pride and a lot of history there, so if you aren’t hurting by the score line then you shouldn’t be even sitting there and the boys are hurting right now. But we will learn a lot from today!”

Harlequins Director of Rugby Dean Richards

Before the interview started I asked Dean if he recalled the last one he did with me at Clifton Lane earlier in the season, where all he was wearing was a towel. And then half way through the interview he dropped the towel and started to get dressed. I can’t repeat everything he said, but he did question my sexuality.

Just for the record Dean, I’m happily married with three kids. Anyway, enough of that, here’s what Dean Richards had to say regarding the match.

“The game wasn’t as easy as the score may suggest, the first twenty minutes we found quite difficult and we just couldn’t get into the game. We had two pieces of possession in the first ten minutes and turned that over straight away.

Rotherham went three points up quite early and really they should have gone ten. Had they gone ten points up it would have been difficult for us to play the game we did. But we came back with a penalty and then a try and after that we got into the swing of things.

I wasn’t surprised at the way Rotherham played because they said earlier in the week that was their intention and we anticipated that. It’s almost akin to how Newbury played, but with a bit more spice.

I thought first half we were a bit lackadaisical, but second half we came out and played with a bit of purpose, a bit of aggression and quite early in the second half I couldn’t see Rotherham getting back into it.

We knew that Rotherham were strong in the mauls coming into this game, but we felt from a defensive point of view they didn’t defend the mauls well, so we thought we could attack them in that area and in fact that’s where our first try came from. But we knew if they got a maul, five or ten metres from our line, they could be very dangerous and we had to be on our mettle around there. But we did defend them very well so I’m quite happy with that.

Our time in National one has been hugely enjoyable, a lot of the guys have visited places they’ve never been before, the competition has been of a far higher standard than we thought it would be and although we have only lost the one game, we’ve had to really fight in a lot of our matches. It’s like today, everyone will say it’s a 50 point game, but we really had to scrap for it, it was quite hard out there.”

Attendance:  7823

Other Weekend Results

Doncaster 30-11 London Welsh

Nottingham 49-34 Exeter

Otley 15-14 Plymouth Albion

Pertemps Bees 16-68 Bedford

Sedgley Park 31-21 Cornish Pirates

National Division 1

Doncaster v Roth Sunday 26 March at Castle Park
.

kick off 2:30pm

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