No excuses for Bullied Oldham

LOST AT ODSAL . . . Michael Ward’s face tells a story as team-mate Phil Joy (right) also contemplates events. PICTURES by DAVE MURGATROYD

NOBODY saw THAT coming . . . an appalling offering by Oldham that was totally devoid of graft, desire, passion and team pride.

An embarrassing 82-0 defeat couldn't have happened at a worse place for coach Scott Naylor, whose six seasons at Odsal as a player were built on a bedrock of personal pride, determination, solid defence and total commitment.

Naylor, a proud man, wasn't the best player in the star-spangled Bulls side of that era, but he was one of the first on the team sheet every week because he would die for the cause and he didn't know the meaning of accepting second-best.

He has instilled those qualities into his Oldham teams during his four seasons here, but nobody would have guessed it - woefully weak, dull and uninspiring but, most of all, lacking in honesty and a willingness to seriously compete.

It hurt Naylor; it hurt him a lot. At Odsal of all places.

So where did it come from? Why would a side that played with exceptional verve and vigour to conquer Workington and Swinton in the first two Shield games slump to such a low that it was hard not to fall into the trap of concluding that they didn't care.

Did they think they were already safe from relegation? That a win at Bradford was beyond them? That this was a game they could afford to lose? That thoughts were not on matching Halifax, Dewsbury and Sheffield in winning on this ground but were already focusing on Sheffield's visit to Bower Fold next Monday afternoon?

Did they see Naylor's decision to rest some of his big-hitters as a management belief that this wasn't a game to be targeted?

Rested or injured, there was no Adam Clay, Liam Thompson, Joe Burke, Kenny Hughes or Danny Grimshaw.

Richard Lepori was back after injury on the wing and Sammy Gee kept his place at centre, quickly discovering that to go up against Bradford and Kris Welham was a different proposition to facing Swinton and Macauley Hallett.

For the second time this season Welham scored FIVE tries as the Bulls' full-time professionals bullied the part-timers physically and then ran them ragged whenever they got the ball wide and out to the fringes.

This was Bradford's biggest winning margin in league competition in the club's history and Oldham's record defeat.

Welham had already crossed for the first two of his nap hand of tries before Gee and his co-centre Kieran Gill were told to switch sides.

He went on to score three more while the unlucky Gee lasted only a few minutes on the left before he rose to collect a short drop out by Dane Chisholm and landed awkwardly, his right ankle collapsing underneath him.

The ball ran away from him, Bulls picked it up and while Gee rolled around in agony on the pitch, attracting the attention of two physiotherapists and a club doctor, Jay Pitts scored the fourth of the home side's FIFTEEN tries through the channel that Gee would normally have been occupying.

On another occasion, Oldham were attacking 10 metres from the Bulls line when Lewis Palfrey's grubber was picked up by Dane Chisholm, who went nearly the full length of the pitch to record the Bulls' eighth try.

It was that sort of game for Oldham. Maybe, you only get what you work for, in which case Naylor's men wouldn't get much out of this game because their defence was almost non-existent at times, several Bradford players ghosting through to score without an Oldham hand raised in anger.

Gary Middlehurst filled-in at left centre for Gee, and another change had to be made early in the second half when Foster hurt his back in a fierce three-man tackle by a physical Bulls side that had no intention of taking prisoners.

The Oldham full-back didn't go off, but he was taken out of the firing line and placed on the right wing with Lepori going to full-back.

Worse was to follow. With Bulls 66-0 up, and after a team warning for what referee Callum Straw deemed to be Oldham's negative tactics, Gareth Owen was sent to the sin-bin for a high tackle - one of SEVEN penalties in a row which went Bradford's way.

He had hardly reached the dug-out, it seemed, before Middlehurst was following him; this for dissent after he had fastened on to a Dave Hewitt chip over the top to seriously threaten the Bulls line for the first time in the game.

When Straw blew him up for offside, his frustration spilled over; he threw the ball away; and maybe, just maybe, released the odd expletive. Either way, out came the yellow card for dissent and Oldham were down to 11 men with quarter of an hour left.

The penalty count here was 12-8, following the 11-4 count in Bradford's favour when the same official handled the regular league game between the two sides at Bower Fold in June.

Clearly, there's a discrepancy between Oldham's view of what is acceptable and Mr Straw's view.

Bulls scored six first-half tries by Welham (two), Olbison, Pitts (two) and Lauaki and nine in the second half by Chisholm (two), Welham (three), Keys, Williams, Pitts and Ryan.

Oldham never looked like scoring . . . enough said.