Naylor’s men suffer at hands of Hornets

Date published: 02 April 2013


Oldham 18, Rochdale Hornets 28

THINGS didn’t go to plan in Oldham’s first league game.

But in terms of the season, this day-one defeat needs to be kept in perspective.

Despite a bonus point it was a disappointing performance by Roughyeds and a setback to go down at home first time out.

Yet Scott Naylor’s young side, average age 23, has won five of its seven matches to date and has posted two derby-day wins to Rochdale’s one in three clashes over the last six weeks.

At Whitebank on Good Friday, Hornets avenged those earlier defeats and were the better side when it counted most. Yet over the 240 minutes of play there is little to split two evenly-matched sides.

Even in this latest meeting, when Roughyeds had five days to get ready against Rochdale’s 12, they battled back from 0-16 down to lead 18-16 before succumbing in the last quarter of an hour.

It was a brave fightback up the hill which, albeit briefly, had Rochdale on the back foot and looking decidedly dodgy as Naylor’s men turned up the heat for a short time.

Hornets clinched it, perhaps appropriately, with the final act of Paul Crook’s aerial bombardment that had challenged Mo Agoro’s nerve.

Give or take the odd dodgy moment, Agoro coped admirably, but this time he lost the ball as he hit the ground while trying to launch a counter attack, presenting Hornets centre Dave Hull with the easiest of killer blows to put the issue beyond doubt.

Hornets chose to go left every time and hit shell-shocked Oldham wide out on the right with tries by Roper, Wayne English and Chris Baines inside the opening half hour.

Scrambling defence twice denied Hornets’ impressive hooker Alex McClurg, but there were near misses at the other end too.

But Hornets kept their composure, capitalised on costly errors by Palfrey and Agoro and took the game out of the Roughyeds’ reach with late tries by prop Joe Bate and centre Hull.