Benson keen to add to squad

THE RECRUITMENT process at Oldham Roughyeds may have ground to a halt, but first-team coach Tony Benson hopes it is a temporary state of affairs.

At present, there are a total of 32 players signed to the club for the 2010 season, inclusive of nine promising reserve-team men on professional contracts.

Benson emphasises that while he is happy with the options available to him at the moment — he hopes to be able to begin trying out a variety of on-field combinations for the friendly at Batley this coming Sunday — he hopes to thrash out a couple more deals to fill the positions in which he is currently short.

“We do need to add possibly a couple more players, but they have to be the right ones,” said Benson, whose pre-season programme has so far been ruined by the big freeze with pitches unavailable for outdoor training and friendlies at Rochdale and Whitehaven being postponed.

“There isn’t a lot at the moment in our price range so hopefully either the expectations of those players without clubs drop as the season approaches, or others may pop up.

“We could do with another player around the halves — more so a number six — an experienced prop and a specialist winger.”

Of the players who ended last season contracted to Oldham who haven’t yet signed for other clubs, Jamie I’Anson is tied up with work commitments, Richard Mervill is still recovering from the bicep operation which ended his season early in 2009, Ben Seru is tied up with the Army and Paul Highton’s future in the game is unclear.

Benson hopes that the loss of several of last year’s stars can be made up for by the exuberance of youth, not least from John Hough’s reserves.

“This year we have really concentrated on the quality of the reserve grade and the idea is now that they can feed upwards towards the first team, rather than us down to them,” Benson added.

“There is a good squad there now and that will make us stronger when we pick up injuries.

“When we can, we will be training alongside the reserves and mixing in with them as much as possible.”

Oldham officials were in touch with their Batley counterparts yesterday but there is as-yet no indication as to the prospects of the game on Sunday (2pm kick-off) going ahead.

Mount Pleasant is currently covered by snow and much will depend on the weather over the next few days.