'Everyone is talking about the Pirates' - but Harvey Biljon's Rotherham Titans will offer no free ride
At the start of the season, when Blaze TV were deciding which game to feature as their Champ Rugby showcase each Sunday, their week six choice of Rotherham Titans against Cornish Pirates had an obvious narrative.
Little old Rotherham against the rich Pirates with their full-time squad and consortium of American and celebrity investors. But instead, it is the plucky upstarts from Clifton Lane who are actually higher up the league heading into this mouth-watering clash, sitting fourth after four wins from their opening five games, while Cornish – for all their gathering interest and ambition – have won three but have yet to do so away from home.
“Everyone is talking about the excitement around the Cornish Pirates,” said Harvey Biljon, a successful former leader of the Pirates who is now captain of the good ship Titans.
“The American investment, Nick Knowles and the TV crews. And you can see by their signings, they should be tipped to be a top-four play-off team.
“There's no doubt that they'll be seeing this game as a turning point in their season. Not because they've not gone well, because they have gone very well. You don't beat Ealing unless you're a top, top team. But they've lost at Coventry and they've lost at Bedford.
“So I'm pretty sure they’ll be thinking let's get this away form right against Rotherham.”
But Rotherham aren’t doing badly either, particularly at Clifton Lane, where they have not lost for two years, a sequence they have stretched on their return to Champ Rugby with victories against Coventry, Bedford and Caldy.
“If I was brutally honest, I think we're probably exceeding expectations,” said Biljon.
“I’m very proud of the challenges that the squad have embraced but at the same time we know things can change very, very quickly in this league and you need to be honest each week.
“I think what I'm enjoying is a serious challenge each week and the way in which we have, as a group, dealt with the highs and lows.
“One of the things I think the group did very well was the way we analysed the Worcester game (lost 78-12). We looked at that game in a way where we took ownership, we took responsibility and then we transferred the adjustments we needed to make into the next game.
“There was no screaming, shouting, noise. It was all very, ‘okay, how do we improve again?’ And we’ve got to take that into Sunday.”