Dazzling Dallimore delivers goods

Oldham’s Mo Agoro takes on Scorpions Connor Farrer

Scorpions 12, Oldham 24

MORE often than not it’s play-makers, points scorers or stylish attackers in a rugby league team who hog headlines and woo supporters.

Josh Crowley’s hat-trick of tries against Gateshead, for instance, earned him kudos and column inches, while it would be tempting to label Jamie Dallimore’s match-clinching try and four goals in South Wales as the biggest single factor in Oldham’s 24-12 win.

Rested against the Tynesiders as part of Scott Naylor’s squad rotation policy, ‘Dally’ returned to action in Neath while club captain Lewis Palfrey took a breather.

Having seen Palfrey goalkicking beautifully to land five goals out of six attempts in his absence the week before, Dallimore was under pressure to deliver in this last of four Northern Rail Cup group games, and deliver he did.

He could probably have back-heeled the goals that converted tries by Danny Langtree and himself into six points apiece, but just as his captain had kicked two off the touchline in the previous game, ‘Dally’ did likewise when adding the extra points here to tries by Neil Roden and Dale Bloomfield.

Having previously had a success rate of three out of 10 across the first two Northern Rail encounters, this will have done his confidence and self-belief no harm at all, not that he was lacking in that department judging by the way he jinked and swerved his way to a solo try under the posts near the end.

With Oldham 18-12 in front and only a few minutes remaining, he positioned himself for the drop goal on the last tackle before waltzing through a bemused defence to secure his side’s third win in a row.

As individual contributions are measured in the context of a team performance, this was up there among the best.

Interesting also for those supporters who appreciate loyalty and longevity of service to their favourite club was veteran Roden’s try in the corner, which took his club record try tally to 111, scored in 292 appearances, stretching back nearly 13 years.

Yet in terms of producing an all-round and complete team performance, such as that against Rochdale at Whitebank for 80 minutes and similarly against Gateshead, if for less than the full 80, this one did not match up to Naylor’s required standard.

Scorpions are no mugs. Boosted by four dual-registered young players from Wigan Warriors (Rhodri Lloyd at left-centre, Sam Powell at scrum-half, Connor Farrell at loose-forward and Oldham-born James Greenwood coming off the bench), they have also acquired a beast of a forward in James Tutuila, whose strength on the ball and power in the tackle stunned Roughyeds in the first half.

Naylor’s men had a mighty battle on their hands, make no mistake.

It was perhaps as well that he opted for five props with Phil Joy, Callum Marriott and Chris Tyrer on the bench because, despite the best efforts of Liam Gilchrist and ever-reliable Jason Boults, Oldham needed every ounce of muscle they could muster.

The Roughyeds pack faced a huge challenge and loose-forward Mark Hobson responded with his finest game of the season so far — a performance in which he led from the front, directed operations where and when the battle was at its toughest and put in a shift of sheer hard graft, without which Naylor’s men would have struggled to wrestle back the upper hand that allowed them to pull clear in the last quarter of an hour.

Individually, his contribution eclipsed that of all others in a game in which Oldham had to dig deep in the first half just to stay in contention.

Scorpions stung first with winger Dalton Grant’s left-wing try in the sixth minute, and they could well have scored on two more occasions, first when Richard Lepori denied them with his speed in getting back to kick dead and later when Mo Agoro tracked back to haul down Ollie Olds after centre Lloyd had made the initial break.

Roughyeds went in at half-time 6-4 ahead following Roden’s 34th minute try. Bloomfield chased and collected the half-back’s deft little kick and transferred inside to hooker Kenny Hughes, who sent in his captain-for-the-day at the corner.

Oldham looked far stronger in the second half, but the Welshmen were still sharp on the counter-attack as shown when centre Shae Lyon-Fraser scored twice in the 51st and 60th minutes.

Happily for the visitors, Olds failed to convert each of his side’s three tries in marked contract to Dallimore’s perfect four.

The scores were locked at 12-12 going into the last quarter of an hour, Langtree having run a superb line to take Dallimore’s final pass and crash over for Oldham’s second try in the 55th minute.

A stunning touchline break by Agoro set up position for the Langtree try, after which Oldham’s Tyrer and the home side’s young hooker Connor Farrer were sin-binned for fighting. Play resumed with a penalty to Scorpions.

It led to the score which put them on level terms before Oldham replied with two superb tries late in the game, the first by Bloomfield after clever centre play by Steve Nield.

Dallimore’s dazzling solo wrapped it all up on a day when Roughyeds were not at their best, yet still found a way to finish worthy winners.