Roughyeds clip RAF’s wings

TRIES by Phil Bickerstaff, Tom Flanagan, Ben Wood and Sam Singleton put the RAF rugby league team to flight at Whitebank.

Oldham under-20s won 24-12 despite having Richard Joy sin-binned for dissent in the first half, before either side had scored.

Full-back Tom Dempsey (17) sent in winger Bickerstaff for the opening try with a superb, cut-out pass and gave an outstanding all-round performance in which he landed four angled conversions from four attempts.

Behind a hard-working front five, which included senior squad members Wood and Paddy Mooney, loose-forward Singleton and halves Tom Flanagan and Jake Hughes also showed up well.

It was a tough, hard-fought battle on a wet pitch in which the RAF boys hit back from 12-0 down to go level at 12-12 with tries either side of half-time.

Wood’s try, goaled by Dempsey, put Roughyeds back in front at 18-12, after which it required a superb, try-saving cover tackle by Connor Partington on RAF right winger Simon Wray to maintain the home lead.

RAF team manager Ozzy Hicks, a flight sergeant stationed at Brize Norton and a member of Tony Benson’s backroom team at Oxford RL Club, said the tough work-out was exactly what his squad had been looking for.

He added: “It couldn’t have been better. For a lot of the game it was a trench-battle in the wet conditions and that’s when you find out what you need to know about your squad.”