Oldham backed to go up - by their rivals

FORMER Oldham prop John Fieldhouse thinks Whitebank will be packed on Sunday for the clash of TWO teams who will soon be celebrating promotion.

Now assistant boss at North Wales Crusaders, Fieldhouse believes Crusaders will win the title and go up automatically.

And he is confident Roughyeds will also move up, as play-off winners.
"That's what I predicted at the start of the season, and I'm sticking with it," said Fieldhouse (51), who starred in Oldham's promotion-winning side of 1989-90 and finished the next season as caretaker player-coach at Watersheddings after Tony Barrow was sacked.

Barrow worked wonders in ’89-90, winning promotion and taking his second-division side to the final of the Lancashire Cup, the semi-final of the Challenge Cup and to a 30-29 victory over Hull KR in the second division premiership final at Old Trafford.

It all counted for nothing the following year when he was axed after winning five of his first 16 games in the top division.

As caretaker, Fieldhouse won five of the remaining 10 league games led his side to within one game of a Wembley cup date for the second year in a row.

But he couldn't avoid the drop and then it Fieldhouse's turn to be shown the exit door, in favour of Australian Peter Tunks.

Over 20 years on, Fieldhouse admits still having a soft spot for Oldham and hopes to see them in the Championship next year.

He added: “I’ll never forget my Oldham days. It’s good to see the new club having some success, though. I genuinely believe they will go up via the play-offs.

“I know Scott Naylor (Oldham coach) from our playing days. He’s clearly got something good going over there, as is evident from recent results after not such a good start.”

“Our fans have been talking about coming to Whitebank for the return fixture ever since our narrow 22-20 win at Wrexham in June.”