Mark of esteem

SCORPIONS 32, OLDHAM 36

THERE’S something in the South Wales air that brings out the best in Mark Hobson.

He was man of the match in Oldham’s 24-12 Northern Rail Cup win in Neath last March and on this latest visit to The Gnoll it was his thrilling try in the corner as the klaxon ended the game that gave Roughyeds their fourth win in five games.

While not a game for the purists, it kept fans of both persuasions on the edge of their seats.

Scorpions led 16-0 after as many minutes; Oldham replied with 26 unanswered points to lead by 10 at the break; the home side hit back to snatch the lead for the second time at 32-30 with 13 minutes left; a Lewis Palfrey penalty goal levelled things up with five minutes to go... and Hobson delivered the coup de grace on the last play.

Each side finished with six tries and four conversions, the difference coming from skipper Palfrey’s two penalty goals — one on the stroke of half-time and the other to square things up at 32-all and seemingly settle for a draw and two league points. If that’s how spectators saw it, neither Scorpions nor the Roughyeds thought likewise.

For the second game in a row Oldham scored a last-gasp try in a tight encounter, but while the first one couldn’t prevent the heartbreak of a two-point defeat, at North Wales Crusaders, this one did the business and kept Roughyeds in third place in the league.

While not one of the side’s better performances — too many missed tackles and too many handling mistakes for that — there were still plenty of positives to emerge from it.

The refusal to lie down in adversity was never more evident at 16-0 down after quarter of an hour or again at 32-30 in arrears near the end of a tough game.

Individually, centre Jon Ford scored FOUR tries — the first Oldham player to do so since John Gillam more than three years ago — to mark an excellent start to his spell with Roughyeds on loan from Salford City Reds.

Prop Jason Boults might be one of the squad’s elder statesmen, but he’s just as “full of it” now as he was when he arrived at the club from Halifax seven years ago.

Served exceptionally well by props Burke and James Greenwood and by stand-off Grant Gore, Scorpions gave Oldham no end of problems in the second half and they were only four points behind when Ford went in for his fourth.

Dual-reg winger Matt Brotherton, in for the injured Mo Agoro on the right wing, had little chance to make an impact but Bowman, the other new boy, looked a more-than-useful acquisition as playmaker-in-chief on the left side of the attack with Palfrey doing a similar job on the right.

Oldham's young captain was also in good form with the boot, not only in field kicking but also in kicking priceless goals, five of them in the first-half alone.