Bedford Blues 27 Rotherham Titans 0: Titans claim the bragging rights as Bester starts to rebuild

Although the Titans ended the season in bottom place in Pool B with a poor record of one win and five defeats, they can reflect with some satisfaction because in each contest, unlike last season, they were competitive.

Club officials are also beaming as Rotherham performed better than rivals Doncaster in the play-offs.

So the Titans can regard themselves as the top professional team in South Yorkshire during both stages of the Championship, but, frankly, there is little to choose between them.

The focus of attention at Clifton Lane is on rebuilding the squad for the 2012-13 season.

Titans’ coach Andre Bester said after the Bedford result that he would announce his new signings in detail at the end of next month.

However, it is understood that he has already recruited a fly-half from Ulster and a scrum-half and full-back from Macclesfield, both of whom have genuine potential to develop at Rotherham as has hooker Dan Baines since he joined the Titans from the Cheshire club.

With fly-half Garry Law, an outstanding goal-kicker and the Championship’s leading points’ scorer before the play-offs with more than 200, deciding to sign a new contract lasting two years, Rotherham are both delighted and relieved to have retained their match-winner.

As well as replacing the five forwards who are leaving to play in the Premiership or in Wales and Ireland, Bester needs to recruit a top-class winger to fill the gap left by the departure of Shane Monahan, who will be playing for Gloucester next season.

The fact that six of his squad, Semisi Taulava (Worcester), Rob O’Donnell (Worcester), Robin Copeland (Cardiff Blues), Sean Dougall (Munster), Sam Dickinson (Northampton) and Monahan will be performing at a higher level next season reflects well on Bester and his coaching skills.

But it is deeply frustrating as he repeatedly loses his best contributors; nevertheless, because Rotherham have a strong reputation of improving the potential of young players, especially forwards, Bester is able to persuade them to join.

As he puts together a new pack, it has not gone unnoticed that Leeds Carnegie have released several forwards, so Bester may be interested in a second-row such as Tom Denton, who has appeared briefly for Rotherham in the past.

With the play-offs next season likely to be limited to the top four clubs, Bester’s priority is to assemble an aggressive set of forwards.

Bedford Blues: Pritchard, Dodge, Burke, Staff, Bassett, Lennard(Sharpe 62), Veenendaal (Baldwin 62),Reeves(Walsh 40), Cochrane (Locke 57), Cooper (Boulton 59), Tupai, Rae (Howard 59), Fisher (Harding 68), Fox, Barrell.

Rotherham Titans: Foden, Homan, McCall, Nonu, Monahan, Godfrey, Williams (Rhodes 72), Kilbane (Harris 22), Stagg (Baines 54), Hooper, Patrick (Maddison 37), Griffiths, Kirwan(Copeland 54), Dougall, Taluava.

Referee: D Gamage.