Cornish Pirates v Rotherham Titans: Coach Justin Burnell looking for sharp improvement from Titans

Rotherham Titans are relishing doing to Cornish Pirates what high-flying Yorkshire Carnegie could not.
Rotherham Titans coach Justin Burnell.Rotherham Titans coach Justin Burnell.
Rotherham Titans coach Justin Burnell.

The South Yorkshire club are in action at Penzance tomorrow looking for a much-needed Championship win.

Given Cornish inflicted only a second league defeat of the season on Carnegie at Headingley last week, picking up a sixth successive victory, it might not be the easiest of tasks achieving it.

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However, head coach Justin Burnell remains adamant his side can pick up their performances and gain some positive results despite an arduous campaign, their last display being a bitterly disappointing 36-21 home defeat to Bedford Blues.

“We missed an unacceptable number of tackles and our skill set was poor in that game,” he said. “I’d like to say there were some positives to take out of the game, but I can’t.

Pirates they will undoubtedly punish us if we are lacking in any areas and they’ve just had a great result against Carnegie.

“But we will go there knowing if we put in the right performance we are capable of getting the result we want.”

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Indeed, history shows they are more than capable; Titans have won seven of the last eight games with Pirates, including the last three visits to Penzance.

Full-back Will Goodwin returns from injury, Northampton wing Tom Collins comes in for the sidelined Ben Foley, centre Callum Wilson is recalled for injured Joe Barker and at scrum-half Rotherham have signed London Irish’s Connor Murphy from London Irish on dual-registration.

Up front, Luke Cole comes in for Joe Graham at hooker and No 8 Lewis Ludlam returns from Northampton to replace Tom MacDonald.