Titans fight the effects of ‘human nature’, says Codling

Their final away game of the campaign before they finish the season with three straight home fixtures yielded no points and no celebrations as the chance to claim the inaugural Yorkshire Regiment Trophy passed them by.

Their head coach, Alex Codling, is in the final weeks of a contract that began only five months ago when previous coach, Andre Bester, walked out amid a very public disagreement with the board.

A number of their star players from this season – the likes of Eamonn Sheridan and Carl Kirwan – are bound for employment higher up the rugby pyramid next season.

So it is little wonder that Rotherham provided only sporadic resistance at Headingley yesterday to a team building momentum towards the promotion play-offs.

To his credit, Codling remains committed to a cause for which he will not be see the eventual fruition on. Whether all of his players are owes much to the growing trend of rugby in the Championship, whereby players sign with teams for next season long before the current campaign has reached its conclusion.

“It’s one of those situations where you’ve got a group of guys who have been fantastic since I’ve been here, but as is well documented, some are staying, some are going, and inevitably people react in different ways,” said Codling.

“Some will fight to the end, others subconsciously will start looking away and not working as hard as they have done.

“We’ll do what we can to ensure that doesn’t happen, but if I’m honest it’s human nature.

“That’s where we’re at, and you saw signs of that (against Leeds) where we had some really nice bits, but other times we fell off tackles and didn’t have the intensity we have had in recent weeks. That’s a reflection of the end of the season where you have a difference in ambitions of some teams. We’re very much safe and Leeds are desperate to get into the top four.

“We’re down to the bare numbers now for the last three games and it’s just a matter of getting a team together.

“We finish the season off with three at home and we do want to finish with a flourish.”

Rotherham have begun interviewing candidates for the job of head coach for next season, with the name of Lee Blackett, their current player and backs coach, understood to be gaining value all the time.