King Kenny’s Midas touch

Photo: PICTURES by PAUL STERRITT

coming through: Oldham’s Ben Wood makes a charge for the Gateshead line.

2 More Image(s) In Gallery

OLDHAM 52, GATESHEAD 16

KENNY Hughes failed by just a finger to do everything right during the hour or so he was on the field in a 10-try mauling of Gateshead Thunder.

All he touched turned to gold - except for one second-half moment when the defaulting digit let him, and skipper Lewis Palfrey, down.

Attempting to land conversions in blustery conditions, Palfrey twice called up George Tyson to steady the ball on the kicking tee for him before he directed it, good and true, over the bar and between the posts.

But another time Hughes was asked to keep his finger on the ball, Palfrey’s kick sailed well wide of the target - proving King Kenny wasn’t infallible after all!

For a long time it looked as though the one-time St Helens academy kid, now 24 and perhaps hitting his best years, couldn’t go wrong.

He had jumped out of dummy half several times to blitz Thunder’s baffled markers. He had supported a defence-splitting power drive by Alex Davidson to race home for his side’s fifth try just before half-time.

He and Palfrey had sparked the move that produced Ben Wood’s successful surge for the sticks early in the second half.

He had given Jason Boults the easiest try he’ll ever score with a cleverly concealed and exquisitely-timed pass from play-the-ball close to Gateshead’s line.

And such was his mastery of the ruck that he was the man at the very heart of everything Oldham did well in this their best Kingstone Press Championship One performance of the season so far.

It would be easy to misconstrue this biggest win in regular league fixtures since the corresponding game nearly a year ago as a victory stroll against also-rans.

Gateshead are no easy-beats, as they will surely show as the season progresses.

They are neither the toughest, nor the best organised defenders in the competition, but they have pace, they move the ball at speed and they have plenty of nous and rugby league know-how as one would expect of a side coached by Stanley Gene.

Oldham had to work hard to lay the foundations for such a comprehensive win and in so doing several players hit their best form of the season so far.

Dale Bloomfield on the left wing was ecstatic near the end after soaring high into the air to pluck a Brett Robinson cross-kick out of the clouds and to touch down for the try that completed his hat-trick.

Danny Langtree, the right-flank second-row runner, chipped in with a brace of tries, and others were scored by Sam Gee, Josh Crowley, Hughes, Wood and Boults.

They were scored on the back of strong go-forward foraging by the props, namely Phil Joy, Boults, Davidson and Michael Ward; Hughes’s authority at the ruck; and a vastly-improved performance by half-backs Palfrey and Robinson in which they used the ball well enough to create space on the outside for the backs to do their bit.

Naylor slightly altered his side from the one at Bradford, giving Joy a start instead of Ward and recalling Davidson on the bench in place of Paddy Mooney.

Thunder proved they are no mugs by scoring a superb try in reply, the move starting in the middle and going out left where Esslemont finished stylishly.