Richmond run riot in B&I Cup against Rotherham
Richmond ............ 35pts Rotherham ............ 5pts
TWO tries in three minutes near the hour-mark sealed Richmond’s first ever bonus-point win in the B&I Cup and their second over Rotherham in four weeks.
Thirteen changes after defeat to Ealing last week led to Richmond’s ruthless display and brought tries for scrum-half Rhodri Adamson, wing Jono Woodward, fly-half James Swan, openside Tobias Saysell and replacement Ross Grimstone while Rob Kirby was mesmeric with the boot.
With the win making it four out of the last five fixtures in all competitions, Richmond coach Steve Hill said: “We wanted to put a marker down and we’ve done that.
“Our defence was very strong in the first half but we had too many mistakes. In the second-half, we nilled them and when we got the ball we showed real edge to our play, I can’t ask for much more than that.”
From the start, Rotherham were deep in Richmond’s territory. An audacious offload by skipper Joe Barker to scrum-half Will Porter opened up the defence for wing Jamie Cooke to run over in the corner in the tenth minute.
Titans wing Wesley Hamilton thought he had scored, but it was scratched off due to a knock-on after a Caolan Ryan chip-chase in the 22nd minute.
Ryan went close again just minutes later after weaving through several Richmond defenders but to no avail as Rotherham’s lack of execution was proving costly.
Richmond’s only run into Rotherham’s 22 in the first-half by Kirby and wing Jordan SimpsonHefft went to touch but a poor Titans line-out pickedup by Saysell got them on the Titans try-line with Adamson going over.
Just after half-time, Swan intercepted from deep, cascaded down the centre in a great-phase of running play with Kirby and Adamson before Woodward dotted down.
Rotherham then spent ten minutes deep in Richmond’s territory but suffered white-fever several times, both No. 8 Burns and Cooke both going close and several poor throws at the line-out didn’t help the cause.
Debutant Swan got Richmond’s third try before Saysell dived over after a catch-drive on the 60th minute.
Kirby sprinted through Titans forwards Adam Peters and Tom Burns for Grimstone to finish under
the posts.
Richmond’s Joe Tarrant and Titans’ Charlie Maddison were sin-binned after a brawl broke out in the 74th minute.
Titans coach Andy Key said: “I was pleased with the first thirty minutes, we did it playing in the right areas of the field and stopped them from playing.
“I’m disappointed with the amount of time we spent in their half without scoring and then they got several tries in a short period which was tough.”