Roughyeds building head of steam

THUNDER 12, OLDHAM 44
IN-FORM Oldham gave a polished first-half performance to blow away Gateshead Thunder at Filtrona Park in South Shields.

Week by week Roughyeds are looking increasingly like a side, perhaps the only one, that can continue to snap at the heels of leaders North Wales Crusaders in the race to finish top and win automatic promotion.

The Welshmen remain red-hot favourites, but if Scott Naylor’s men can extend their winning run from three games to five in the next couple of weeks there will be one heck of a showdown when Crusaders come to Whitebank on the last Sunday in July.

“If we can maintain current form, or even improve on it, I don’t think anybody in this division will fancy playing us,” said Naylor.

Indeed, they won’t. This was Roughyeds’ seventh win in nine and their fourth out of five on the road. Their only away defeat was in a 22-20 thriller at Crusaders, the side that, on the same Wrexham ground, demolished third-placed Rochdale 48-0 yesterday.

You couldn’t ever imagine any side at this level doing that now to a young Oldham outfit which has been gradually, yet expertly, moulded into shape by the twin tutelage of Naylor and his No 2 Lee Spencer over the course of a season that is starting to look full of promise and expectation.

KNOWLEDGE

They complement each other perfectly; Naylor, ex of Bradford Bulls and England with a string of winners’ medals; Spencer, once a forward with Folly Lane amateurs, yet a man whose knowledge of and love affair with rugby league are such that players hang on his every word.

“No negatives here,” he barked, as the players killed time in a 45-minute motorway service station wait for a replacement vehicle en route to the North-East. “We hit a problem, solve it, and move on.”

The squad had talked all week about shaking off their habit of starting slowly and on a day when, for once, they might have been excused for taking time to find their land legs, they raced into a 32-6 half-time lead to put the game to bed.

It wasn’t that Thunder were all that bad. They just couldn’t cope with the speed of Oldham’s execution, the power of the forwards moving up the middle, the accuracy of Lewis Palfrey’s cross-kicks and the ability of the men out wide to turn them into points.

Full-back Richard Lepori, with pace to burn, bust them open on attack and did equally well in defence on the rare occasions he was put under pressure.

Had he not lost his composure early in the second half, when he was sin-binned for retaliation after being roughed up in a three-man tackle, he would have been a strong contender for man of the match.

Skipper Palfrey, with six goals, four try assists and a generally top-notch all-round performance as team leader and playmaker-in-chief, was also there or thereabouts.

Others caught the eye, too.

Like two-try centre David Cookson, whose strength and physicality out wide on the right counted for much when Roughyeds were seeking to get on top early.

Like his co-centre Jon Ford, who is scoring tries for fun in the colours of his adopted club — three here and 11 in total over the last six games.

Like Sam Gee, another two-try man who terrorised Thunder from dummy half, although he was lucky to get away with his second touchdown after a quickly-taken tap penalty while Thunder were still sorting themselves out after losing winger Joe Brown to the sin bin.

You could go on. Most players came up with something worthy of comment, such as Michael Ward’s barnstorming break up the middle in the first half and debutant Nathan Mason’s impressive first outing in which he carried the ball with purpose and showed more than once that he has a good offload too.

Thunder were never in the game in the first half. They made but two breaks, the first when big prop Jason Payne was hunted down by Lepori and the second when Sam Latus was put through a hole and had the legs to score by the posts.

Other than that it was all Oldham. A try for Gee from dummy half; two apiece for Cookson and Ford; and six goals from as many shots by Palfrey gave Roughyeds their worthy 32-6 interval lead.

The visitors had a sixth try — which would have been the best of the lot — disallowed for a forward pass on the intervention of a touch judge. Mason’s offload to Liam Thompson did the damage and Lepori finished off only to be brought back for the infringement.

On the debit side there was a sign of things to come shortly before half-time when referee Joe Cobb placed on report an incident in which several players fronted up to each other after a clash of rival full-backs Lepori and Luke Hardcastle. In the end it was no more than handbags.

Early in the second half Lepori was knocked about in the tackle. He retaliated and both he and Thunder’s Callum Cockburn were sin-binned. This was also placed on report, the penalty going to Gateshead.

Among it all, Ford completed his hat-trick by using every inch of his 6ft 5in frame to pluck a Palfrey cross kick out of the air at speed and go over.

Gee and Mo Agoro also crossed — the latter after ball movement left to right by Palfrey, Thompson and Cookson — before Thunder grabbed a late consolation try by right winger Jacob Blades.