Benson boosted by double deal

Tony Benson: Hoping to see his new-look squad in action for the first time.

ROUGHYEDS PREVIEW

TONY BENSON enters the biggest week of pre-season so far boosted by the double capture of home-grown men Michael Fogerty and Mark Brocklehurst.

The Roughyeds coach will see his new-look squad take to the field for the first time — tomorrow’s pitch inspection permitting — against Batley at Mount Pleasant on Sunday (2pm kick-off).

That game is followed up by the rearranged trip to Cumbria to take on Whitehaven in Howard Hill’s testimonial game on Wednesday night (8pm), with a Law Cup clash against Hornets RL at Spotland on Sunday (3pm) representing a third fixture in eight days for Oldham.

Fogerty, a former Waterhead centre who broke into the professional ranks relatively late aged 24 with Keighley, and Brocklehurst, a utility back schooled at Wigan who also learned the game at Peach Road, will be among 15 new faces set to be on show for the Roughyeds in those warm-up matches.

“Mark has got a good pedigree from coming through the ranks at Wigan,” said Benson.

“He is versatile and can play at centre, wing, full-back and even in the back row as he did at Rochdale last year.

“He will be very useful for us and he has the qualities of enthusiasm and drive that we are looking for.

“The same is true of Mick Fogerty. Again, being a local lad he has that extra motivation to do well in playing for his town.

“He is a very good centre who has played the game for some time and scored plenty of tries.”

Training hasn’t been easy lately for Oldham given the poor weather, but Benson says that despite the obstacles he has faced the quality of work produced been encouraging.

“We have done plenty of gym stuff and with great enthusiasm,” he added.

“We have spent a month now indoors but we are still training very hard.

“There have been a few good contact sessions in the judo hall — and I’d go as far as to call them brutal, to be honest.”

Championship side Batley have an advantage over Oldham in that they have already played out two warm-up games, against local rivals Dewsbury on Boxing Day and then a young Huddersfield Giants side on January 3.

The first of those games saw the Bulldogs come away with a 20-12 win on the home ground of a Rams side who had gone the whole of the Championship One season unbeaten last time out.

Batley followed that up with a 40-12 win against a Giants side made up mainly of academy players.

Ex-Roughyeds winger Lee Greenwood helped paper over the cracks with two second-half tries.

However, it was a performance Bulldogs coach Karl Harrison admitted afterwards needs to be improved on.

Another familiar face in the Batley line-up on Sunday will be forward James Martin.

He had a brief spell at Oldham two seasons ago on loan from Huddersfield.