Focus back on league points

Photo: Tim Bradley

Richard Lepori

AFTER stepping off one exciting ride, Oldham now turn their attention to another as they look to retain their Kingstone Press Championship status.

The Roughyeds’ Ladbrokes Challenge Cup journey was halted by Super League high-fliers Warrington who, after being stunned by an early Michael Ward try, recovered to run in 13 of their own in a 70-10 win at Bower Fold.

This season’s knock-out competition has been good to Oldham, with a superb victory over Hull KR and a decent pay-day against the Wolves.

However, it’s now back to gathering league points for Scott Naylor’s side, starting with visit of Leigh on Sunday.

Oldham chairman Chris Hamilton said: “The main focus for this season is the Championship.

“We’ve made a good fist of it so far and you look throughout the division and teams are beating each other so.

“We’ve had some tough games which we’ve lost, we've had some tough games which we’ve won.

“We know what we are about. We’ve got a group of lads that are very committed, very hard-working and we'll be busting a gut to do our utmost for the rest of the season, starting against Leigh next weekend.”

Reflecting on the Warrington defeat, Hamilton admitted it was always going to be an almighty task to pull off another seismic shock, in the face of big-name players such as the calibre of Chris Hill, Ashton Sims and Kurt Gidley.

REASON

He went on: “We were always going to be up against it. They are the Super League leaders for a reason and when you look across the team, they have strength everywhere, whereas we were down to the bare bones.

“The last 20 minutes of the first half when they got on top was when we didn't have a single prop on the pitch, which shows you the size of the task we had.

“That first 20 minutes we had a real go at them. The biggest compliment we can say to our lads is that Tony Smith (Warrington coach) went into in our dressing room and said very complimentary things not only about this game but previous games.

“We did rattle them at 6-0 and got stuck in, but it was always going to be a real uphill struggle.”

Meanwhile, Naylor has said he will have no problem in lifting his team for Sunday’s clash with Championship leaders Leigh Centurions.

With a long injury list, Joe Burke cup-tied and no dual-reg players available, Naylor went into battle against one of the best club sides in both hemispheres with only 16 fully-fit players plus Tom Ashton, who hadn’t played for months after an appendix operation.

“I’m completely over that now, but I still need to do a lot of work on my general fitness," said centre Ashton, who went on for the last quarter of an hour, slotting in at left-centre with Danny Grimshaw switching to full-back and Richard Lepori going off.

The other three subs were Kenny Hughes, Adam Files and Sammy Gee — not a single front-rower among them.

While partner club Huddersfield Giants retain an interest in the Challenge Cup they can’t risk their players turning out for another club in the same competition and becoming cup-tied.

And the Giants’ cup win against Leeds Rhinos on Friday night ended any thoughts Roughyeds had of boosting their squad the next day with dual-reg personnel.

Even so, Oldham scored first, lived with the Super League leaders for half an hour and gave them a few frights before running out of gas.

Naylor said he was proud of his squad's efforts against unbelievable odds and added: “It’s all over now. It will soon be forgotten. We move on and prepare for Leigh. It doesn't get any easier.

“But we’ve come through with no more injuries and next week we’ll have some lads back and we'll have the dual-reg boys again.

“Leigh will be the start of our second half of the season and the main objective, from day one, has been to consolidate in this division.

“I’ve got a great bunch of lads and we talk a lot about ourselves. We don’t focus much on other teams. Whether that’s good or bad , I don’t really know, but it seems to work for us.

“And I don’t see any problem at all in picking up the boys for next week.”