Veteran Rotherham Titans scrum-half JB Bruzulier believes the dedication his team-mates showed on a short week between Champ Rugby assignments was instrumental in their clinching of a late win at Nottingham on Friday night.

Rotherham have remained part-time after winning National One last season and climbing into a second tier that is increasingly professional.

Matching up against those full-time squads is hard enough Saturday to Saturday, but last week they had two fewer days to prepare.

They didn’t finish playing Cornish Pirates at their Clifton Lane home until gone 6pm on Sunday and were back in action five nights later at Nottingham on Friday.

Rotherham Titans scrum half JB Bruzulier (left) scored a try in the comeback win against Nottingham in Champ Rugby.

placeholder image — Rotherham Titans scrum half JB Bruzulier (left) scored a try in the comeback win against Nottingham in Champ Rugby.

The majority of the players worked full-time jobs through the week with no time for recovery, while maintaining their training sessions on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.

Scrum-half Bruzulier - whose enjoyment in representing Rotherham is prolonging his career - works in the club’s community department.

He said: “Last week was a massive challenge especially with us being part-time rugby players, boys having full-time jobs in the day, not normally having a Sunday to recover, straight into work Monday, then training twice that week as usual.

“So for what the boys did in that short amount of time to get their bodies right was a big ask.

“It was tough, but with the group that we have, there was never any doubt we’d give it our best.

“The coaching staff deserve credit as well, they looked after us in the week, our strength and conditioning coach Callum Donohoe understands the boys, he understands our bodies and he made sure we were doing the extra during the week to get it right.”

And it paid dividends at Lady Bay with Rotherham coming from 10 points down with 10 minutes remaining to claim a 28-24 win; their fifth victory in seven games.

“We knew it was a big, emotional game for Nottingham, who were wanting to get their season back on track,” said Bruzulier, who scored Rotherham’s third try to draw them to within three points.

“At times Nottingham could have pulled away and scored a few more so we’ve got to work on certain areas where we’ve got to be better.

“But with the camaraderie and the group we have we believed in ourselves and stuck to what we knew and it came off.

“There are some areas we need to work on this week, but we’re growing slowly.”