Outstanding effort, dumb rugby — Naylor

STEVEN Nield tries to stay on his feet as he looks to find a way through the Hunslet defence.

SCOTT Naylor wasn’t looking for hard-luck stories after Hunslet’s 17-16 extra-time win in the Championship One Grand Final.

It was Oldham’s seventh grand final defeat since 2001 and followed Roughyeds’ wins by the narrowest of margins in their previous two games against Hunslet. They were three desperately tight games against evenly-matched sides, but the one that really mattered went to the Hawks.

Summing up in four words, Naylor said: “Outstanding effort, dumb rugby.”

Oldham’s team boss, who has suffered grand final defeats with Oldham in his first two seasons as a head coach, added: “To be level at full time was unbelievable, seeing that from the first minute we had constantly given Hunslet the ball. You can’t do that against good teams.

“Losing Dale Bloomfield with concussion didn’t help because it meant we couldn’t use our bench as we would have liked to.

“But that’s not why we lost. We lost because we didn’t have enough ball and, at a guess, I would say we spent 75 per cent of the game in our own half.

“I knew it would be close, but we didn’t play anything like as well as we can play, and we came close to getting away with it.

“Neutrals will say it was a brilliant game, but to me it was a game I didn’t want to watch — a game of Hunslet attack and Oldham defence.

“The lads have been outstanding all year. We have a mutual respect. I have time for each of them and they all play the game with me.”