Simply awful

THE RACE IS ON: Roughyeds full-back Miles Greenwood takes up the charge

Barrow 42 Oldham 16
OLDHAM can forget the top-six play-offs if this is the best they can come up with.

Weak in defence and painfully slow in attack, they offered little resistance to table-topping Barrow in a 42-16 drubbing at Craven Park.

Few expected them to win up there, but the ease with which Barrow flew into a 22-0 lead in half an hour raised fears that Roughyeds might be heading for the ignominy of a bottom-four finish.

Raiders finished with eight tries — four by young centre Ryan Shaw, who also landed five conversions to chalk up 26 points on his own.

Only Rob Foxen offered anything on attack, but it was his lost ball in the tackle when clearing Oldham's line that led directly to Barrow's second try in the 13th minute.

Barrow were already 10-0 up when Shaw opened his account by crossing in the corner on the other flank.

Soon afterwards he scored his second over distance, displaying the pace to go round Miles Greenwood.

A typical Jamie Dallimore solo try, which he also converted, was all Oldham could show in reply and just before half-time Barrow stretched their lead to 26-6.

Apart from one silly mistake when he ran yards offside at a restart kick, Clarke had a superb game off the bench, ably backed up by his fellow substitutes, including Luke Stenchion, playing his first game for many months.

The interval dressing-room inquest would have raised questions about indiscipline, given that Roughyeds conceded five penalties in the first 20 minutes — four of them deep inside the home half.

The first three penalties of the second half also went to the home side.

The Oldham skipper was sent to the sin-bin, but by now Roughyeds looked much tighter and better organised in defence.

Raiders scored only three tries in the second half, two of them the direct result of speculative high kicks to Gillam's wing.

At 38-6, and with Kaighan producing a 40-20, Barrow looked set to race away with it in the last 20 minutes.

Roughyeds, however, came out of their shell to score well-worked tries by Gilchrist and Smith — the former fashioned by Ward and Roden and the next one by Roden and Greenwood.

They at least made the score more respectable








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