Ealing blast Titans with second-half 5-try romp
EALING’S successful season, second in the Championship with nine wins, gathered pace as they continued to make substantial progress in the Cup at the expense of the team that have suffered 11 consecutive league defeats.
Ealing’s powerful second half performance at Clifton Lane, five converted tries in just 26 minutes, enabled them to extend their winning run in the competition, and on current form are well set to make the semi-finals for the second season running.
However, there were also some promising signs for the Titans because, in the first half, the Yorkshire side were highly competitive, had plenty of ball and territory and were level on 10-10 at the break after a converted try by centre Drew Cheshire and a penalty from fly-half Lee Millar.
But, sadly, from their point of view in the second half, Ealing’s pace and power, largely hidden earlier, exploded as Rotherham were cut to pieces with converted tries on 41, 46, 55, 62 and 67 minutes.
The Londoners, who had scored two tries before the break by full back Luke Daniels and hooker Alun Walker, ran through Rotherham’s defence far too easily.
Centre Lewis Jones touched down twice and his efforts were well supported by other tries from skipper and lock Harry Casson, scrum half Grayson Hart, and inside centre Lewis Robling.
Rotherham’s commitment and spirit cannot be faulted, but they lack force, fail to convert attacking positions into tries and, as against Ealing, turn the ball over too frequently.
Ealing’s comfortable win, their third on the trot in the B & I Cup, ultimately satisfied coach Alex Codling, but he was far from happy at the interval:
“We take pride in our work ethic and at times it was not there in the first half. We had a few harsh words and then you saw a change in attitude and application.
“We take this competition seriously and are giving it a real go.
“As regards the season as whole, parts of it I’m thrilled with and there are parts where we still have a lot of work to do. There are
patches where we are not where we need to be.
“But you’ve got to give the boys massive credit for what they have achieved in the last 18 months and my challenge as coach is to take us to the next level in the next two years.”
Rotherham and Ealing clash again on Saturday in the Cup return, but looking ahead Titans’ coach Andy Key sees some encouragement, and his team did prevent Ealing scoring once Rotherham were down to 14 after the sin-binning of forward Rob Louw in the 71st minute.
He said: “Team spirit is being maintained massively. We are resilient and as against Carnegie last weekend, we were highly competitive for 40 minutes.
“We are moving in the right direction, but what we can’t do is to do off-loads in silly places. We slipped up in the second half because we didn’t control the ball as we had done before.”