Langers pens new contract

DANNY Langtree has underpinned his commitment to Oldham RL Club in play-off week by signing a ontract for next year.

Like prop Phil Joy, the 22-year-old former St Helens forward will stay at the club whether or not the Roughyeds win promotion.

With every player coming out of contract in the autumn, coach Scott Naylor has compiled a list of those he wants to retain.

The boss’s ‘must keep’ dossier is with chairman Chris Hamilton, who is working hard to deliver the goods for Naylor and his right-hand man Lee Spencer, who are both contracted to Roughyeds for another year.

Naylor was just one win short of leading his young squad to automatic promotion in his first season at the club and in his first head coach's job. His aim now is to take Oldham to the next level via the play-offs which pair his Championship One runners-up with third-placed derby rivals Rochdale Hornets at Whitebank on Sunday (3pm kick off).

The winners go through to the final at Leigh on September 29; the losers get a second chance.

Naylor said: “Danny has quality. He’s solid, with good skills and he doesn't shirk hard graft. He’s missed only one game all season, while he was carrying a knock, and that probably says everything about what we think of him.”

Langtree spent two seasons in the reserves before getting his first-team chance in two games at the end of the 2012 season after the departure of the then coach Tony Benson.

It was on the evidence of what Naylor saw on DVD footage of those two games, and the hard work the player put into his pre-season training for 2013, that Langtree under the new boss became an instant hit.