Next stop Headingley for Roughyeds

HEADING TO HEADINGLEY: Oldham players celebrate after booking their place in the Championship One Grand Final.

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YORK 12, OLDHAM 31

A PLAY-OFF performance that was polished to perfection — well, almost — pushed Oldham to within 80 minutes of promotion glory.

Bronze at Hunslet, silver at York. And gold, glorious gold, is there for the taking if the boys from Whitebank can carry current form into the grand final at Headingley in a couple of weeks.

Proving their 25-24 win at second-placed Hunslet was no fluke, they went to table-topping York and played with even more verve, skill, adventure, confidence and defensive solidarity than they exhibited on that memorable Friday night under floodlights in Leeds.

This time they met opponents who had beaten Hunslet three times; who had won 10 games in a row; who finished top of the division with five points to spare; who hadn’t lost at home since April; and who sent Roughyeds scurrying home sheepishly after taking a 54-12 spanking in July.

What a turn round! Scott Naylor’s men were on fire. They smashed into York’s forwards from the start, forced York to drop out from under their own posts twice in the first 10 minutes and totally dominated a first-half in which the outstanding Danny Langtree ripped them apart.

He set up a try for Steven Nield and then scored himself — a sensational solo effort that saw him race the full length of the pitch with York’s James Saltonstall and Ben Dent in pursuit. It sent Oldham in at half time 24-0 in front.

The try, in the dying seconds of the half, inflicted a serious blow to York’s hopes of quickly getting back into the game early in the second half.

Earlier, his clean break up the middle brought a rapid response from Nield. The full-back moved like lightning to get up in support and he took his final pass to race into the clear and score from the half-way line.

Liam Thompson and David Cookson also scored first-half tries, while George Tyson completed the nap hand with his side’s fifth try 10 minutes from the end. Steve Roper converted four of them and landed a first-half penalty.

In stark contrast, the division’s highest scorers registered only two tries and they were both the direct result of individual mistakes by Dale Bloomfield and Adam Clay.

Those tries, plus a couple of surges from dummy half close to the line by Jack Lee and Kris Brining, were the most York could threaten, so solid, organised and hard-working was Oldham's massive defensive effort. In the main, Bloomfield and Clay helped Nield to clean up everything thrown at them.

The loss of Cookson with a badly-gashed head 15 minutes into the second half was a setback, but Tyson filled in at centre for him - and made a pretty good job of it.

On attack and defence, Palfrey had his best and most commanding game in a long time, while Roper was as ever the steadying influence alongside him.

Phil Joy, Jason Boults, Michael Ward and Nathan Mason toiled tirelessly up the middle, setting the platform from which Gareth Owen and Kenny Hughes worked their magic from dummy half .

Shell-shocked, York resumed for the second half with more intensity and passion, reducing their deficit to 24-12 before Roughyeds carried on where they had left off.

Roper was wide with a drop goal attempt before landing a penalty which, crucially, kept Roughyeds 13 points ahead.

They needed a fifth try to be safe and it came when Nield’s low trajectory kick on the last tackle put Dent in trouble.

He misfielded the kick and Oldham capitalised when Tyson crowned another memorable performance by charging through the last line of defence to touch down behind the posts.

Roper’s fourth conversion gave Roughyeds a 19-point lead with 10 minutes to go. A big job well done.

Headingley, here we come.