Rams raiders hit Roughyeds hopes

Photo: CHRIS SUNDERLAND

TRY TIME: Oldham’s Paul Highton is congratulated by team-mates after scoring their opening try. Pictures by CHRIS SUNDERLAND

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Oldham 12, Dewsbury 36

A SECOND defeat of the season has dealt a big blow to the automatic promotion hopes of the Roughyeds.

Visitors Dewsbury – now the stand-alone favourites to end the season top of Co-operative Championship One – withstood an early bombardment from Oldham to score 22 unanswered points by half-time, before successfully repelling a threatened comeback as the game entered its final quarter.

The Rams, tenacious and well-organised in defence and clinical in accepting the chances offered to them, now top the table and are two points ahead of the Roughyeds with a game in hand.

Even at this relatively early stage of the league season, that gap looks a big one.

On the pitch, the Rams were certainly a step ahead of Tony Benson’s side.

Big and strong all over the field, Warren Jowitt’s side did the simple things well and thoroughly deserved their victory.

However, Oldham will feel they were on the receiving end of a few marginal decisions made by referee Craig Halloran.

The most striking of them may have had a major influence on the result. With his side 16-0 down close to half-time, Roughyeds man Andy Ballard produced a sizzling burst down centre-field.

Approaching full-back Lee Lingard, the winger chipped the ball over his opponent’s head and chased after it – only to find himself the victim of what appeared to be a blatant, clear-cut obstruction as Lingard shifted across to stop the ex-Salford player in his tracks.

The result of no try, no penalty and no sin-bin appeared unjust. Then, to rub salt into the wound, Dewsbury marched downfield to almost immediately claim a try of their own.

Little went right for Oldham all afternoon. A positive start, with repeat set after repeat set putting the Rams under great pressure, failed to yield a try and Kane Epati opened the scoring with an excellent length-of-field interception effort.

Though Oldham continued to press hard there was little fluency to their attacks, in part due to the dominance of the visitors in terms of controlling the ruck.

The big frame of Andrew Bostock was responsible for Dewsbury’s second try, extending his arm out in the tackle to touch down on a rare excursion into Oldham territory, before Taron Wildey collected Liam Finn’s kick which bounced wickedly over the head of Thomas Coyle and straight into the hands of the substitute.

Then, after the Ballard incident, an inside ball was worked well for Finn to cross under the posts, Pat Walker kicking his third conversion of the afternoon.

Oldham improved in the second half and began to threaten a Rams rearguard perhaps a touch tired from the sterling efforts.

It wasn’t until the 57th minute that the home team broke their scoring duck, James Coyle finding Paul Highton with a pass which looked a touch forward, the big prop crashing over from close range.

Four minutes later, a long pass from Thomas Coyle found Andy Ballard on the wing and his inside ball to Lee Greenwood – filling in at centre, with Danny Halliwell going off with a dead leg – allied to Ballard’s conversion brought the game back to 22-12.

However, a one-on-one steal by the impressive hooker Mike Emmitt on Gary Sykes coming out of his own in-goal gave the Rams the try they needed to seal the game.

Finn converted and added a pair of penalties, the second of which came after Marcus St Hilaire was sin-binned for holding down Bryn Powell with five minutes left, and there was still time for a Ryan Smith try.



The best team won, admits Benson

ROUGHYEDS coach Tony Benson admitted that the best side emerged victorious in the battle of the Co-operative Championship One’s two big guns.

A powerful Dewsbury side outperformed Oldham in virtually every aspect of the game, scoring six tries to the home side’s two to significantly improve their chances of landing the title – while also inflicting major damage to the home teams’ own hopes.

Though the Rams stay unbeaten, this was a second loss in five league games for Benson, who shied away from offering excuses.

“It was quite simple really, they just played better than us,” said the Oldham coach, who refused to apportion blame for the result to controversial decisions made by referee Craig Halloran.

“No team goes out there to lose. We train every week to be as good as we can and today it wasn’t enough.

“The players are absolutely gutted.

“Our week went so well leading into the game, but a team turned up here and they were better than us on the day.”

Oldham went into the half-time break shell-shocked after a positive start turned sour.

Despite barely having ball in hand for the opening 15 minutes, the Rams defended superbly and took advantage of almost every opportunity they had to lead 22-0 as the sides changed ends.

“I knew we would have to work very hard in the second half,” said Benson. “We had to defend them to ‘nil’ and score more than 22 points to win it.

“That is a big ask but I felt we were capable of it and after putting 12 points to nil on them we lost the ball right on their line.

“That could have been the difference.

“But we will learn a lot from this game. We have a lot of improvement in us and we will work hard to achieve that.”