A review of last seasons game and the Titans team to face them this weekend

The Titans return to the Commsplus Stadium this weekend to take on old friends and rivals Henley Hawks. Over the last few years there have been some great games between the two teams, apart from the year Henley Hawks won promotion to National League 1, that year was a little less great unless you were a hawks fan obviously.

Last season both teams won away with Henley running out convincing winners 31 - 42 at Hyde Park and enforcing the Titans first defeat of the season and the Titans won 17 - 20 on a wet Good Friday at Dryleas.

The Titans home game last season saw them run in 5 tries to Henley's 6, with Lewis Webb, Ollie Rice, Sam Prior, Nick Mason and Rob Allen touching down with Kieran Hill and Toby East converting 3 of them between them. The game at Henley was cancelled twice due to the snow before it finally got played on Good Friday. In wet conditions the score wasn't as free flowing as it was at the beginning of the season with both teams scoring two tries, Ben Oliphant-Thompson scoring both. The game was nip and tuck and it took the trusty boot of Gary Kingdom once more to kick a penalty on the stroke of full time to cliam the win.

This season things are close between the two teams with the Titans having won one more game than the Hawks, however a similar result to last season would see Henley draw level on points with Taunton. So the team will need to be at their best if they want to avoid a similar situation to last season.

To help the cause the Titans coaches have made a few changes from last weekend, in comes prop Conner Baker & hooker Alex Spurdle, for Isaac Dalton and Chris Francis, Stu Persey and Milo Reynolds form a new second row this week replacing Brett Harvey and Cory Teague. In the back row there is a bit of a shuffle with Ratu 'Toots' Vakalutukali starting at 7, and Ben Oliphant-Thompson taking over the 6 shirt and Sam Prior coming in at 8. Jarrad Hayler is on the bench for a bit of a rest after playing every minute of the opening 6 games. There are also a couple of positional changes in the backs making room for Toby East who starts at inside centre. Nick Mason and Ollie Rice push out one place to outside centre and wing respectively. On the bench Barrie-John Chapman comes back into the squad after a few weeks.

‍

The Titans Team For Saturday

1 Connor Baker

2 Alex Spurdle

3 Sonny Haines

4 Milo Reynolds

5 Stu Persey

6 Ben Oliphant-Thompson

7 Ratu Vakalutukali

8 Sam Prior

9 Lewis Webb

10 Sam Brown

11 Ollie Rice

12 Toby East

13 Nick Mason

14 Noah Sixton

15 Gary Kingdom

16 Sam Williams

17 Alfie Petch

18 Barrie-John Chapman

19 Jarrard Hayler

20 Oli Toomey

‍