Apologies as Rotherham Titans crash to heavy defeat and coach Anthony Posa leaves club

ROTHERHAM Titans coach Matt Smith apologised to supporters in the wake of the seven-try defeat at Sale FC, saying: “They deserve better.”

Titans followers travelled across the Pennines in good numbers yesterday only to see their team crash 49-7 and edge further into the National One relegation zone.

Rotherham’s defeat, their 11th in 16 matches, comes after Anthony Posa (above) left Clifton Lane after six months as joint head coach. The club declined to comment on the experienced Kiwi’s departure.

Posa arrived in June from Bradford & Bingley with an abundance of coaching experience, winning the national county title eight times in 12 years with Yorkshire U20s. He has also enjoyed promotions in club rugby and coached Biggar in the the Scottish Premiership as well as the Crotian national side but the move to Rotherham has not worked out out.

On the latest defeat, Smith said: “We let ourselves down massively. Once again we’ve had a great training week and it has come to the game and we have not put anything into practice. At times we had brain explosions, people not sticking to what we wanted them to do.

 “At the moment we are just killing ourselves. In the first half all Sale’s tries came from everything we did wrong. They didn’t have to do anything to get them. That’s where we are as a team. We are just making so many errors and this is a good league. If you make that many errors then you don’t deserve to win rugby matches.

“I can only apologise to the supporters. They paid their hard earned money to come and watch a team and they were let down and the players especially have to think about those people the next time they go out on that pitch. They deserve better.”

Titans action from earlier this season.

Cutting through at will on a heavy playing surface at Heywood Road, Sale ran in four converted tries to lead 28-0 by half time and added three more by the time Titans finally stirred after some positional changes late on. Centre Harry Dunne went in under the posts for the consolation score from an intereption.

With Birmingham Moseley taking a losing bonus point from their 29-27 defeat to Rams, it leaves Rotherham nine points from the safety of fourth bottom spot with 14 matches to go.

They now have a two-week break for Christmas before their next fixture at home to Plymouth Albion on January 4.