Spotland take-over a real boost

OUR support at Rochdale was absolutely terrific and I am sure that most of those inside the ground were our fans.

In games like that one, we need that and it really helped us — it was almost as if we had taken over the ground for the day.

Hopefully fans will turn out in force this weekend for the Dewsbury game, which is a really big one for us. The players would certainly appreciate that, as they will the following week for another tough game across at Swinton.

After a break from action following Friday’s game, in the early part of this week it is a case of mopping up and working out the areas in which we need to work on.

There is clearly some room for improvement. Our goal line defence, for example — though, to be fair, that is the area in which most teams score from! We need to tighten up our marker defence and that is something we will be looking at, as well as various other areas.

One thing I am keen on is that we develop different games to cope with different styles of play.

At Spotland it was never going to be the sort of game where we could throw the ball around as we did in our last game against Lézignan.

It was difficult and both ourselves and Rochdale found it difficult keeping hold of the ball at times. In fairness, the only other match we have played this year in conditions like those was the Huddersfield friendly at home.

We showed that we are capable of handling it and those type of conditions help to build up the levels of grit and determination in the team.

There was no panic at any stage of the game, even when we were 18-10 down. We hung in there and eventually got the result that we deserved.

I was happy with the way Stevie Gibbons went. He was perfect in those sorts of conditions. He is a toughie who likes to get involved and doesn’t mind getting himself stuck in around the ruck.

Half a sniff of an opportunity and he will be gone, too, as he showed for his try. He did a good job, especially as it was his first game for us since he got injured at Widnes.

The good thing about Andy Ballard’s try was that there were so many options available to Thomas Coyle. The kick to the corner was one of a few he could have chosen — so it was the perfect one for us in that it got us four points, giving us the lead that we held on to until the final hooter.

Got a question for Tony? Email him at tonybenson@oldham-chronicle.co.uk