Rotherham Titans 14 Jersey Reds 45: 13-points adrift Titans face huge fight against relegation

Rotherham Titans face a huge fight if they are to avoid relegation.
The Jersey defence halt Titans' Ben Foley. Photo: Simon HallThe Jersey defence halt Titans' Ben Foley. Photo: Simon Hall
The Jersey defence halt Titans' Ben Foley. Photo: Simon Hall

They crsashed 45-14 at home to Jersey Reds to leave them rock bottom of the Greene King IPA Championship with just two points

The gap to second bottom London Scottish is now 13 points with Rotherham without a win in their nine games.

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They trailed 7-0 after only two minutes to the first of three tries by winger Tom Pincus, but hit back to dominate for a 15-minute spell.

They pressed the Reds into conceding a string of penalties and fly half Caolan Ryan convincingly knocked three of them over to nudge Rotherham into a 9-7 lead.

But the Channel Islanders hit back strongly and Titans were rarely in it after that although Charlie Maddison gained some reward for his efforts when he crashed over in the final minute for Titans sole try of the game.

Coach Titans Andy Key said:“We were not good enough. There were a lot of good things that went on in the week and we knew what we needed to do; we rocked up at times, but rocking up at times isn’t good enough, we’ve got to be there for the majority.

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“When you start playing catch-up rugby things start going against you; I’d rather we didn’t do that, but it’s a reflection as well of what the players are prepared to do, to try and get themselves back in the game.

“We’re not hiding from anything, today was massively important and we genuinely believed in the week, with the things that we did and the homework that we did on Jersey, we thought we knew how to beat them.

“Although they got an early score, we clawed ourselves back and created some opportunities. We just needed to persevere with what we were doing. We probably didn’t work hard enough at times, in order to get ourselves onto the front foot in the first half and we maybe should have played a little bit more territory at times.

* Titans: Foley, Cheshire, Loizias, Peters (Millar 53), Henry (Tibbetts 46), Ryan, Davies, Tom Williams (Toby Williams 54), Cole (Murphy 62), Shields (Palmer 62), Peters (Postlethwaite 68), Hodge, Calladine capt, Maddison, Boladau (Grange 10).