London Scottish 16 Rotherham 11: Pain of loss quickly over with Bester having faith in his Titans

In conditions made difficult by heavy rain before the game, Rotherham struggled to get into their stride against a Scottish side celebrating their return to the top two divisions for the first time since a financial meltdown 12 years ago.

The Exiles started well with two penalties from James Brown inside the first 20 minutes before the Titans finally clicked into gear and hit back with a terrific try on the half hour, started by wing Peter Homan and finished off by full-back Cliffie Hodgson.

On the stroke of half-time Rotherham went in front with a long-range penalty by Garry Law and when Law kicked a drop goal 10 minutes into the second half it put Rotherham 11-6 ahead.

But then it all went wrong for the visitors as captain for the day Sean Dougall was sin-binned for a trip, his side’s second yellow card after Semisi Tualava was earlier sent to cool his heels after a first-half flare up.

Scottish took advantage and powered into the visiting 22 on the hour when replacement Mark Bright broke three tackles and shot the ball out wide for Oliver Grove to score.

Brown’s conversion put his side 13-11 up and he soon added another penalty to make it 16-11.

After that there was no way back for Rotherham despite one frantic last push on the home line which came to nothing.

“It wasn’t a good start and we didn’t play anywhere near as good as we hoped we would,” said Bester.

“It was one of those games where they weren’t playing any better than that and we’ll struggle to play any worse.

“But there were a lot of positives and we’ll work on putting them right in time for next weekend’s game against Leeds.”

London Scottish: Bordiss, Grove, MacDougall (Amor, 70), Trueman, Howells; James Brown, Heeks; Clarke, Stanfield (Kwasnicki, 74), Thiade (Liffchak, 52), Pape (Rudzki, 55), Joshua Brown, Oliver Brown (Bright, 59), Andrews, Kellard. Unused substitutes: Mugford, Auterac.

Rotherham Titans: Hodgson, Monahan, Godfrey, Nonu, Homan; Law, Rhodes; Kilbane (Hooper, 50), Baines, Cahill, Patrick (Vaioleti, 59), Griffiths, Copeland, Dougall, Taulava. Unused substitutes: Stagg, Harris, Airwan, Williams, Hamilton.

Referee: M Carley (RFU).