Roughyeds soar past Skolars to land derby date

HANG TIME: Richard Lepori takes to the air to touch down.

OLDHAM 64, LONDON SKOLARS 8

IN TERMS of qualifying for a final with a commanding performance, it doesn’t get much better than this.

From Richard Lepori at full-back to Sam Gee at hooker, Oldham were ruthless in their 64-8

destruction of a London Skolars side that travelled north genuinely believing they could crown their best-ever season with a play-off win at Whitebank.

They were without the injured Dylan Skee and hooker Jamaine Wray. To add to London’s woes, Skee’s stand-in Oscar Thomas put the kick-off directly into touch, thus providing the home side with a penalty and early attacking momentum.

If it was Naylor’s plan to quickly butcher London’s heart, it worked like a charm. No more than 70 seconds were on the clock when Josh Crowley opened the scoring. With less than quarter of an hour gone, Roughyeds were 24-0 up, having recorded further tries by Jon Ford, Dale Bloomfield and Lepori, all of them converted by Palfrey.

A week ago Palfrey, on his own public admission, was given a lesson by his opposite number in the Rochdale side, Paul Crook. The Oldham captain learned fast. He gave an outstanding man-of-the-match display, highlighted by 10 goals from 11 shots.

His excellent all-round performance at the heart of Oldham’s attack was key to the good rugby which enabled Roughyeds to go in at half-time on a 36-8 lead and to continue in that dominant mood, but even more so, in the second half.

Skolars’ forwards couldn’t live with the sheer power and enthusiasm of Oldham’s pack.

Phil Joy and Jason Boults set the early lead up front, then Michael Ward and Matthew Haggarty took over, all of them smashing a path before first Gee and then Files would jump out of dummy half to keep the momentum going.

Crowley on the left and the impressive Danny Langtree on the right would then be set free on the outside of the half-backs with options of keeping the ball moving to the outside or putting it back to an inside runner.

Defensively the whole side worked hard.

Roughyeds didn’t a get penalty from minute one to minute 56, but they gave away some silly ones during their one and only dodgy spell in the middle of the first half when Skolars scored twice through Alex Hurst and John Paxton, their centres.

Astonishingly, the penalty count at half-time was 7/1 to Skolars, one of which followed an incident involving Gee and Louis Robinson under the Oldham sticks which referee George Stokes put on report.

Gee was penalised for striking out at Robinson on the London man’s play-the-ball, but the Roughyeds man protested that he was merely the victim and the one who retaliated.

Gee was immediately replaced, but he returned later for a second spell in which he was similarly impressive.