Season so far.

In case you can’t see the full article from the link provided, please see below the article which I have copied and pasted. The article was published on line by The Yorkshire Post by their Sports Editor, Nick Westby, who can be followed on X by searching @NWestbyYPSport

Rotherham Titans captain Zak Poole believes a greater squad depth is at the heart of the South Yorkshire club’s promising start to life in National One.

The Clifton Laners, who outlasted Leeds Tykes in the race to the National Two North title last year, have acquitted themselves well on their return to the nationalised third tier, winning six of their opening eight games of the season to sit in third spot.

Even when they received a kick up the backside with a first defeat on home soil in over 18 months against Bishop’s Stortford last Saturday, they responded admirably seven days later with a win at their one-time Championship rivals Birmingham Moseley, to continue leading the chasing pack in pursuit of front-running duo Rams and Richmond.

“Quite a few players have changed and we’ve still got momentum,” said Poole, who was instrumental in their promotion-winning campaign of 2023/24.

“It’s easy to say winning becomes a habit, but it can’t just be the momentum of last year because a lot of the squad has changed with certain players bowing out because they didn’t want to commit to the longer distance, and I respect that.

“We still retained a good core of players but what’s different this year to other years is we’ve developed a strength in depth, we’ve had a lot of squad rotation in the first eight weeks and we’ve not seen the level drop which is credit to all the lads that train hard week on week and credit to Harvey (Biljon - director of rugby) for pushing them. The rotation hasn’t created a stumbling block, if anything it’s made us better because we’ve got more depth and more competition.”

There was also a level-head applied in training last week, following what was a surprise slip-up against visiting Bishop’s Stortford.

“Credit to Bishop’s, they turned up and outplayed us in the first half, but we didn’t play well enough,” admitted Poole.

“That’s the thing in this league, you can’t be off your game, ever.

“It made us realise you can’t take winning for granted.

“So we trained really well, but the good thing was it wasn’t addressed as a big panic that we’ve got to go and win to put it right, Birmingham Moseley was just another game. Yes it was third versus fourth, but we just played our game, stuck to the task and got the result. There was no added pressure or sense of panic.”

Poole added: “If you’d have offered us six wins from our first eight, 100 per cent we’d have taken it.”