Changing face of Champ Rugby embraced by forward-thinking Rotherham

Former PREM club Rotherham are unlikely to ever go full circle and reach the game’s highest level again, but they have shifted 90 degrees ahead of their return to the Champ after an eight-year absence.

After decades of not much changing at their Clifton Lane home ground, which hosted top-flight rugby in 2000/01 but was not deemed suitable in their second stab at it in 2003/04, there has been plenty going on.

Following promotion from National One, Rotherham’s preparations for the new season have included an ongoing upgrade of their facilities in order to meet the Champ’s ground criteria.

The demise of Clifton Lane co-tenants Rotherham Town Cricket Club has allowed the rugby club to reconfigure the playing surface, which will now run across the old cricket square.

Doing this will enable Rotherham to eventually add stands either side of the pitch, with the Shed – a smaller version of the one at Gloucester but equally as partisan – now positioned at one end of the ground instead of alongside the roadside touchline.

First up, new floodlights and a media tower have been erected to enable live coverage of Titans matches by online subscription broadcaster Clubber TV and its new free-to-air broadcast partner, Blaze. Former head coach Craig West, a sparky by trade, has been doing the electrical work on it, as proof that while the Titans are keen to progress, the family feel to the club remains intact.

The upbeat and forward-thinking mood at Rotherham reflects that of the Championship, which has been galvanised ever since Tier 2 Chair Simon Gilham arrived from France with his can-do attitude.

The new TV deals and catering firm Elior’s title sponsorship have helped massively in upping the Champ’s standing, which is now acknowledged as the proving ground for young English talent to shine and appears to now be getting the backing by the RFU that it deserves.

“In the next six to 12/18 months, you’ll struggle to recognise Clifton Lane. There are lots of things going on,” said Harvey Biljon, the Titans’ director of rugby, informed RugbyPass.

“We’d have thought securing promotion from National 1 to the Champ early would have been of benefit but there has been so much going on, it feels like it has been 24-7.

“It’s not only your recruitment, you’re assembling a new squad, but you’ve had all the challenges that the crazy hot summer has brought – having to adapt what your pre-season looked like, to off the field and trying to do building works when it is baking hot and the ground is rock hard.

“What’s happened is that they have turned the pitch 90 degrees, and they have fenced around the pitch, there is a new media tower going in, new dug outs going in; it is all in process.

“There’s going to be new changing rooms, new medical rooms, new rugby offices. There are new stands to come both sides of the pitch and a gym on site. It’s all obviously going to be done in stages.

“Sometimes change is difficult but the supporters have really got behind the pitch being turned around.”

Due to the summer heatwave, Rotherham have put back plans to flatten and relay a new playing surface for at least 12 months.

“I don’t think it is quite Bedford, but I think you will have a bit of a slope. But 12 months down the line, subject to weather and everything else, we should have a great surface moving forward that will complement the rest of the facility,” added Biljon.

Conspiracy theorists, and there are plenty at Rotherham, given the allegations they were paid off not to accept promotion in 2002, were quick to suggest they’re not operating on a level surface anyway when the fixture list was brought out.

The Titans’ first three games are against teams that finished in the top four in 2025/26 – home games against semi-finalists Coventry (this Saturday) and runners-up Bedford (3 October), with a trip to champions and deadly rivals Worcester (26 September) in between.

Having steered the club up from National 2 North in his first season in charge and then winning a second promotion in as many years from National 1, Biljon acknowledges that a hat-trick of titles is not on the agenda this time around. It will all be about finding their feet at this level again.

“There’s not goal-setting in that space, let’s put it that way,” he admitted.

Biljon has won the Champ before, when he was in charge at Jersey Reds. He had fly-half Russell Bennett alongside him then, and the former Wasps scrum-half made him one of his summer signings, from south Yorkshire rivals Doncaster.

Other than another former Donny player, tight-head Andrew Foster, and No.8 Callum Bustin, who was with Foster at Leeds when they were relegated, most of the Titans squad will be experiencing the Champ for the first time.

By contrast, Biljon has probably been in the Champ longer than he deserves. With a bit more luck and less blinkered thinking, he should have had a shot in the PREM by now.

While Jersey’s financial collapse hit him particularly hard, Biljon has picked himself up and never let the disappointments dim his enthusiasm for the game, or the next challenge ahead.

“Our job as coaches is to prepare the team as best we can,” he said.

“We understand that a lot of players have come in and it is a bigger squad than we’ve had before. So we have had four pre-season friendlies. A lot of that was to create some continuity.

“We had fixtures against two junior teams, Old Albanians and Oundle, which went very well for us. And then our job was to expose our players not only to the physicality but also the speed and skill of what the next level looks like.

“We were lucky enough to take the squad to Newcastle Red Bulls and play there, and then we finished off last Friday with a traditional game against Durham University, and you know what the university students play like – fast and furious.

“One our players said to me after the Newcastle game, ‘I have never played in a game that quick’, and I said, ‘get used to it, it’s going to be like that week in, week out’.

“It’s great that we are going to expose players to the next level and let’s trust that they go really well.”

One thing Biljon will resist endangering is the bond that the group has developed over the last two years by bringing in too many dual reg/loan players, if at all.

Some fringe players will go out on loan to National League clubs, but the direction of travel is likely to be mainly one way.

“I think it is a dificult one. We have been through two campaigns where we have only used Rotherham players, there hasn’t been any dual reg or loan players, and we have to take a view on that,” he reasoned.

“We like to have our own players, our own identity, but we have to be realistic. With injuries and the nature of the beast we might need to consider those options. I don’tknow.

“But, to date, we have gone well. We have just got to make sure it doesn’t affect the identity of our club.

“Having done some homework, the 12 games Ampthill won are the games where they had Saracens players. The other games where they didn’t have Saracens players, they all lost.”

Biljon is also unsure about what sort of impact the change in the try bonus system will have on the league. This season an extra point will only be awarded to teams if they score three or four tries than the opposition, rather than just scoring four tries in isolation.

“Is it supporting the full-time teams or is it taking away from the style of rugby you want to play,” he pondered.

“Are you trying to limit scores or trying to create scores? Until we are in it and there’s context to it, we don’t know what that looks like.”