12 hungry men
Reporter: MATTHEW CHAMBERS at Derwent Park
Date published: 06 July 2009
Roughyeds recover from Halliwell red card to run in 11 tries
Workington 6, Oldham 60
TAKE away Danny Halliwell’s red card and this was a thoroughly slick and professional performance from the Roughyeds.
From up in the dust-swept stand at Derwent Park it was impossible to tell what Peter Dobson said that so riled the former Leigh and Halifax centre.
It wasn’t clever on Halliwell’s part to throw a pair of real haymakers in full view of referee Craig Halloran and a touch judge, but in hindsight he can at least point to the fact that it meant Oldham were from that point on forced to concentrate fully on a match in which they could, in fairness, have virtually strolled through.
That is not to pay any disrespect to a fiery but limited Workington side. But the gulf in class was always apparent and an 11-try trouncing ended up summarising the disparity between the two teams on show.
Even with 11 men on the field — Phil Joseph had a spell on the sidelines after persistent high tackling was punished — the superiority was evident and two tries were scored when two men down.
Paul O’Connor was the main beneficiary on the day, picking up a hat-trick as reward for enthusiastic support play, while there were braces for Tommy Goulden and, late on, Gary Sykes.
James Coyle and Neil Roden picked their passes consistently well as the forward pack rumbled on to make big yards on almost every carry, while at hooker both Thomas Coyle and Sykes had impressive afternoons.
There were a number of very attractive tries, too.
Workington Comets had been careering around the speedway track at Derwent Park the previous night, but it was Oldham who set the pace from the off here.
After Halliwell’s kick-off had bounced out for an Oldham scrum, James Coyle fed the marauding Dave Allen on the burst after only two minutes to open the scoring.
A strong response from Dave Rotheram’s men followed but the lead was doubled when Chris Baines delayed his pass perfectly to pick out O’Connor for the first of his treble.
Halliwell was then dismissed before O’Connor rounded off a brilliant team move, taking on James Coyle’s pass after initial breaks down the left from Marcus St Hilaire and Lee Greenwood.
Joesph’s spell on the sidelines followed, but the visitors amazingly added two more scores during his period away from the action, O’Connor’s hat-trick arriving on the back of more sparkling support play after 31 minutes prior to Goulden crashing home from short range.
The home team finally got on the board right on half-time. As the ball went to ground, Jason Mossop exploited a big overlap to get in on the left with Rob Lunt adding the extras.
At 28-6 up, the Roughyeds could have been forgiven for playing it safe in the second half but instead, Benson’s boys continued to serve up some powerful yet attractive fare.
James Coyle broke away from two weak tackles to cross after 52 minutes, Goulden ran around a number of home defenders for his second three minutes later and it was only two minutes after that when brilliant, quick hands from James Coyle and Roden led to a score for St Hilaire as the ball swept from right to left.
There was also time for Sykes to run home a pair of tries, either side of an inventive effort which saw Roden belt a kick from his own 20 right down the other end of the field, Lucas Onyango winning the foot race with no Workington full-back in situ.
Benson hails ‘clever and controlled’ game
TONY Benson was a happy man after watching his side rip Workington to shreds at Derwent Park, a result which lifts the Roughyeds a place to third in Co-operative Championship One.
Shrugging off the red card handed to Danny Halliwell for violent conduct midway through the first half, a clearly determined and hungry Oldham side ran rings around Town even with 12 men.
The visitors also managed to score a pair of tries when temporarily down to 11 following the sin-binning of Phil Joseph, but it was the overall control of the game which pleased Benson the most.
“It was a difficult game to play, losing Danny early on,” said Benson. “It certainly wasn’t going to help us as it is always difficult to come up here as it is.
“So I am really pleased with the result but more so, how we did it.
“The things we have been working on in training over the past couple of weeks we have really come on with. We applied ourselves and showed a lot of character in defence.
“We played a clever and controlled game and I put a lot of that down to (half-back pairing) James Coyle and Neil Roden.
“The dummy-halves also worked really well and controlled the width of our attacks.
“We used the ball when we should, kept it tight when we should and beat them all over the park.”
Benson admitted that Halliwell’s dismissal may even have had a positive, galvanising effect on his men in a game in which Oldham were always heavy favourites to win, up against a team without a league win since the opening match of the season.
“It sounds silly, but it is probably a good thing in a game like this,” Benson added when asked about the red card.
“We travelled so far to play a team at the bottom end of the table and it is so easy to get caught out.
“Obviously I am not happy with Danny (Halliwell) being sent off but I didn’t even see it to be honest and don’t know how it started.
“I am happy because we are playing like we are training, doing the right things.
“We are working hard on supporting the ball carrier, pushing up, playing with some variety around the ruck and taking the right option as to whether we go for the short lead on the fringe of the ruck or go wider.
“The decision-making on that was really good, as it would have been easy to go from side to side.”
