Naylor salutes the power of six

SCOTT Naylor believes his SIX front-row forwards will be the driving force behind Oldham’s bid to climb out of rugby league’s third tier in his first season at Whitebank.

Having seen Michael Ward punching holes up the middle against Gloucester in his first run-out at prop, the Oldham boss says he will have no hesitation in using him in the engine room again.

As part of his squad rotation policy Naylor rested Chris Tyrer against the All Golds and experimented with centre or back-row man Ward as a replacement prop off the bench.

He started with Jason Boults and 19-year-old Callum Marriott and later replaced them with 21-year-old Phil Joy, in his first season on contract at this level, and play-anywhere Ward, himself only 22.

Speaking ahead of Sunday’s clash with Tony Benson’s Oxford at Whitebank, Naylor hailed the Ward experiment as an unqualified success and spoke highly of the squad’s strength in depth in the front-row of the pack.

He said: “All four props did a great job against Gloucester (Roughyeds won 36-0 away from home) and we didn’t use Tyrer and Liam Gilchrist, who is recovering from injury.

“Ward’s successful switch up front gives us six props. They are putting pressure on each other and that’s got to be good for the team.”

As preparation for the Oxford game Naylor arranged a closed-doors game in Salford on Saturday against a squad from the City Reds.

“Both teams got a lot out of it. You can’t always mirror a game situation in training, but this was just what I was wanting for the lads to keep their intensity and their fitness levels on a high.

“We’ve got only two scheduled games in May so we will be doing more of this to keep things ticking over instead of having weekends free.”