I WOULD like to welcome everyone involved with Rotherham Titans to OBR for this afternoon’s penultimate National One home game.

Our opponents are flying high and it’s remarkable to come into this highly attritional league and do so well. It’s fantastic and well done to them.

It is only the second time they’ve been here and we hope we can do to them on a dry, flat, wide pitch what they did to us on a narrow, wet one back in November!

It has been a difficult second half of the campaign for us, but the guys put on a good show last week and the most pleasing thing was the younger members of the squad.

It’s a pressure cooker – they could easily have made mistakes and been overawed by it – but I was more pleased despite losing than you can imagine.

Success did arrive the week before and congratulations to the Colts who defended the OBB title unbeaten with a brilliant victory against Windsor.

Testosterone levels were through the roof, but the performance they put in against a very capable side – featuring a few Premiership Academy players who’d not been available most of the season – was superb.

They never let their heads go down at any stage and deserved everything they got, while Dave (Cox) and the other coaches should be commended for what they’ve done.

I am delighted to again have Vale & West supporting today’s game – Terry Wright has taken Rams to his heart, and they are one of our bigger sponsors.

They look after both the club accounts and Duncan Lynch’s, and they’ve gained some six or eight clients through Rams which is brilliant because it shows the rugby network is working – we need to get into the town and get more sponsors on board.

Terry has introduced two or three new names to the list, but we could do with another 15 or 20 small local businesses to come on board and see what being associated with Rams can mean.
We suffered sad news earlier this month with the passing of the legendary Sidney Dunn.

He was known to many of us at Rams and was always by my side at both home and away matches as Redingensians progressed up the leagues and became the Rams we all now love and enjoy.

He was a true gentleman in every sense, will be missed by us all and the number of affectionate comments about Sid have been very touching.

Finally, in my last notes of the season I must finish with the Ramily.

The support continues to grow, we’ve got people coming along for the first time who can’t believe the level of professionalism, hospitality – the beer, coffee, burgers, absolutely everything – they’re blown away by it and keep coming back.

They’re bringing their friends which is fantastic and we’re constantly now one of the highest gates, only Plymouth average more, in all the National Leagues.

It’s quite something and we’re very thankful.