Palfrey stars in taming of Bears

Date published: 02 March 2015


OLDHAM 42 - COVENTRY BEARS 6

LEWIS Palfrey made a superb comeback in Oldham’s 42-6 defeat of new boys Coventry.

Whitebank isn’t the most hospitable of venues on a bitterly cold winter’s day, but Roughyeds played a wet-weather rugby in which Palfrey, back from a hernia operation, directed operations admirably from centre field.

In games towards the end of last season, Steve Roper was handed goalkicking duties because captain Palfrey was struggling with his fitness. It’s fewer than seven weeks since his surgery and was thrown in at the deep end in this first-round tie of the iPro Sport League One Cup.

Far from easing himself back, he played the full game on a heavy, energy-sapping pitch and, for good measure, converted each of Oldham’s seven tries, four of them off the touchline and despite a fierce wind. In these conditions It was an outstanding display of goalkicking.

Not content with that, he gave an exemplary performance in midfield and was directly involved in the build-up to tries by Jack Holmes, Adam Clay and Jarrod Ward.

Wingers Clay and Ward each finished with two, while others were scored by forwards Adam Neal and Nathan Mason.

Coventry were in contention for half an hour, at which point they trailed 12-6, their only try scored by Ben Tyers.

After that, Oldham’s forwards gradually wore them down and broke their gutsy resistance to finish comfortable and worthy winners.

Though Oldham played up the slope second half and into the wind they were constantly moving forward.

Mason scored under the posts after good work by Files and Michael Ward and then Jarrod Ward scored twice in 10 minutes in the left-hand corner, finishing superbly on both occasions with little room in which to work.

Roughyeds will face much tougher opposition this season, but for starters this was good enough. Fans couldn’t have asked for more.