Second-half power show

Gary Owen scores under the posts.

ROUGHYEDS 38, ROCHDALE HORNETS 18

ROCHDALE went the same way as York the week before . . . blown away in the second half by an Oldham side that looks increasingly capable of matching anything Kingstone Press League One can hurl at it.

Just as the City Knights led at half-time and were then destroyed by Oldham’s 28 unanswered second-half points, so the Hornets led 18-14 early in the second half before Roughyeds smashed them to smithereens by piling up 24 points without reply.

Though there were many similarities between the two performances they didn’t run entirely on parallel lines.

In the first half against York, Scott Naylor’s Oldham men had to hang on grimly and put in a massive defensive stint to turn round only 12-6 down.

In this typically rough and tough derby battle they scored three first-half tries to Rochdale’s two; missed a certain score when George Tyson lost the ball going over the line; and went desperately close on two more occasions when Tyson and Danny Langtree were held up in the Hornets’ in-goal area.

All this was attacking up the hill to the clubhouse end, perhaps supporting Naylor’s view that, as far as he and his players are concerned, the slope is of little consequence.

Be that as it may, Roughyeds seem to have it sussed that other sides can’t live with them when they’re attacking the bottom end of the ground after half-time.

They step up the tempo and play with such pace and power that opponents are drained of energy and resolve and start to concede penalties galore in their desperate attempt to stem the tide.

Hornets were penalised eight times in the second half — one fewer than York in the previous game.

When a side with as much talent and self-belief as Oldham is gift-wrapped all that possession and good field position few teams at League One level are going to stop them.

Hornets are no mugs. They looked good early on with Danny Bridge excelling in a strong pack of forwards, Paul Crook always a threat with the ball in his hands and Danny Yates controlling a good kicking game designed to keep Oldham pinned in their own red zone.

They were off to a flying start when Crook went up the middle and Yates looked a certain scorer until Jack Holmes came from nowhere to bring him down just short.

It was a fantastic piece of cover defending by Oldham’s left-winger, who came to his side’s rescue again in the second half by defusing a towering bomb under pressure as the Hornets cavalry came bearing down on him.

Hornets went 8-0 up in as many minutes with a Crook try (from dummy half), a conversion and a penalty goal after a high tackle by Langtree.

After that, though, Oldham were mainly in control of the game apart from brief spells either side of half-time when Lee Paterson and Bridge scored tries for the visitors.

Paterson took advantage of a rare mix-up in Oldham’s defence to stroll over, while Bridge squeezed in at the clubhouse corner after a dodgy start to the second half by Roughyeds, who conceded two penalties and were then forced into defending back-to-back sets.

Hornets didn’t score again in a match in which Oldham’s trio of dual-reg men from Huddersfield Giants, full-back Jake Connor, centre Oliver Roberts and loose-forward Jacob Fairbank all contributed heavily to the team performance.

Hornets were similarly strengthened with Jack Ashworth and Lewis Charnock on dual-reg from St Helens and new-boy Matthew Haggerty, who played nine times for Oldham in 2013, on loan from the Saints.

Connor gave an exciting and highly-skilled performance until he hurt a leg trying to stop the Bridge try in the 44th minute.

Sammy Gee replaced him off the bench and in keeping with his form of the past few weeks he did an admirable job under the high ball and on kick returns.

Adam Clay worked tirelessly in helping out his forwards on exit sets, while Lewis Palfrey and Steve Roper vindicated Naylor’s decision to revert to the old firm at half-back and to give on-loan 'teen David Hewitt a watching brief on this occasion.

Roper, who stood down for Hewitt in the two previous games, looked as though he had never been away, his vast experience of these derby clashes proving invaluable at times when old and cool heads were required.

Tyson has neither of those, but he kept his composure remarkably well in a tough, physical encounter that had all the hallmarks of a typical derby — good rugby, fierce tackling, needle, exciting tries and a tense atmosphere.

The battle of the packs was always going to be the key factor and despite good work from Rochdale's Crook, Bridge, Jordan Case, Haggerty and Danny Jones, Oldham’s forwards won it on a knock-out with an absolutely stunning display of second-row running by Josh Crowley. Hornets couldn’t handle him.

The game’s outstanding player, Crowley made big yards every time he had the ball.

Hornets switched personnel around to try to combat him, but to no avail. He was going just as strongly at the end as he was at the start and it was fitting that he should score his side’s seventh and final try when taking a cute offload from Roberts just before the end.

Adam Neal and Phil Joy were the best props on view, while Hornets also found it hard to stifle Oldham’s right-flank strike force of Langtree and Tyson.

Oddly, given the amount of ball that invariably went to Oldham’s left, the best try of the game was manufactured and finished down the right.

Connor started the move with an overhead pass to Tyson, who turned Clay inside. Roper got with him and the supporting Palfrey finished off under the posts — a gem of a try which took Roughyeds into a 14-8 lead from 8-0 down.

Other first-half tries were scored by Clay and Connor, while four in the second half came from Fairbank, Gee, Gareth Owen and Crowley.

Owen’s try brought the house down, it being an individual effort from behind play-the-ball, in which he dummied and side-stepped his way through a tight defence to score under the posts.