Initial signs are promising: Batley 54, Oldham 16
Reporter: Matthew Chambers
Date published: 18 January 2010
THE FINAL score may not suggest it, but there was plenty of promise within the Roughyeds’ first hit-out of pre-season.
Co-operative Championship side Batley — revitalised under the stewardship of Karl Harrison following his arrival at Mount Pleasant last season — have plenty of quality within their ranks and it showed at times as they cut through the defence of Tony Benson’s side to rack up nine tries.
But considering Oldham have barely seen a ball in training, let alone in a game situation, this was a decent performance. Batley, by contrast, have played twice in recent weeks.
Benson freely admitted that he knew little about many of his new players.
He will know a little more now. Michael Fogerty, for example, showed up very well when introduced to the action after half-time and grabbed a pair of well-worked tries to mark his first game in Roughyeds colours — which, incidentally, were similar to those of Batley, save for the visitors’ blue shorts and socks as opposed to red.
Fogerty’s first saw him take Valu Bentley’s pass and somehow wriggle through a number of tackles before touching down on the left, with his second seeing him leap into the air to finish off Matty Ashe’s pinpoint, arrowed cross-field kick on the last tackle.
In between those two efforts, Ashe looked to the corner and flicked a clever kick inside which was read superbly by the dashing full-back Paul O’Connor.
Of the other new boys to stand out, prop Dave Ellison battled hard and looks the part, as do the angular and athletic second-row pair Saqib Murtza and Kashley Watkins.
As well as skills, the three tries the visitors managed illustrated guts, all coming with the Roughyeds staring down the barrel of a potentially huge defeat.
Batley only managed one try in the opening quarter, distinctive prop Byron Smith burrowing over from close range despite having three defenders hanging off his back.
But with a number of substitutions came a big lack of defensive understanding and the home side rattled in four further tries before the break to leave Oldham apparently down and out.
First centre Mark Barlow sneaked in at the corner after left-wing pairing Chris Brand and Michael Ward had done well to stop the bursting Johnny Campbell.
Then the excellent Bulldogs scrum-half Paul Handforth turned on the afterburners to slice through the defence on halfway, handing on to Campbell to finish off the move, before a strong run from Danny Maun down the left saw Gareth Moore cross the whitewash.
The scoring spurt continued when Oldham-born David Tootill crossed after a huge Handforth bomb was only parried into centre-field by Ward six minutes before the break.
Five successful Moore conversions helped Harrison’s men take a commanding 30-0 lead with them at the interval.
If the home fans presumed the second half would produce more of the same, they didn’t reckon for steely Oldham resilience.
Playing down the famous slope, the Roughyeds recovered from conceding an early try when Tommy Gallagher spun and touched down from close range to provide some cheer to Benson and the travelling fans.
Fogerty’s first and O’Connor’s fine effort, allied to one Ashe conversion, brought the score back to 36-10 as Oldham showed some promising attacking invention.
Former Waterhead and Higginshaw centre Fogerty then produced his salmon leap to take a fierce kick and rack up a third try of the afternoon for Oldham, also converted by creator-in-chief Ashe just before the hour.
Unfortunately, from this point on — again, as a result of changes borne out of the desire to give all 20 players a decent outing — the game slipped away once more.
Campbell latched onto Handforth’s inside pass six minutes later to run home behind the posts and that try was followed by the best of the afternoon.
A superb team move involving hooker Kris Lythe — twice — as well as Handforth and Chris Buttery saw the ball shifted at pace on the break with Moore finishing it off.
Winger John Gillam went close to collecting another excellent Ashe kick but couldn’t quite make the catch, and in the final minute ex-Roughyeds wide man Lee Greenwood scored a simple try in the corner to round off the action, Moore maintaining his 100-per-cent record by converting his eighth Batley try of the day.
Benson satisfiedwith first impression
TONY BENSON pronounced himself satisfied as work-in-progress Oldham battled hard at Mount Pleasant.
The final score of 54-16 in Batley’s favour doesn’t reflect the efforts put in by a visiting team who, the Roughyeds coach admitted, still have plenty to learn.
But there was enough determination on show — and snippets of skill, particularly with Michael Fogerty’s well-taken brace and Paul O’Connor’s effort in the second half — to lift the spirits of the travelling supporters and Benson too.
“I am really happy to get a run out and take a look at some of the players, because to be honest, I had only seen probably half of them play before,” said Benson, after the first of three scheduled pre-season friendlies.
“It was about getting an idea of what they can do and where they can play and we had to make up the team with the couple of injuries we have got.
“We had players in positions they hadn’t played a lot in, like Michael Ward on the wing and things like that. I appreciate the fact that they would go and do that.
“All in all, in the first 20 minutes of each half we looked pretty good individually. I didn’t expect a lot of cohesion at this stage — not just because we haven’t had any games, but because we haven’t been on a pitch to practise anything either.
“A lot of what we did was part skills and a lot of those were very good while some players let themselves down in the last 20 minutes of each half.
“Some of that is down to the combinations on the field at those times as well.
“I can take a lot of positives out of the game. As a group, we have got a lot of work to do in certain areas and that will make a lot of difference — and they are probably the same areas I suspected at the start of the game that we might need to work on anyway.
“The players will turn up at training wanting to improve for Wednesday.”
That midweek game in two days’ time will see Oldham travel north to take on Whitehaven in Howard Hill’s testimonial match.
Ahead of that, Benson’s eye was caught by a number of solid performances up front as well as that of scrum-half Matty Ashe, who created all three of the Roughyeds’ tries.
“I was really happy with Wayne Kerr and Dave Ellison in the front row,” added Benson, who used 20 players in total.
“I thought Jason Boults did well when he came on and was nice and solid.
“There is a lot of potential there in the other front rowers like Jack Graves and Jacob Kinney. who is straight and direct.
“Matty Ashe did stand out and in difficult circumstances. He had very little to work with but did a lot in a difficult situation. I look forward to seeing him two or three weeks down the line when we have more cohesion as a team.
“But his kicking game was sublime really.
“The other stand-outs were Mick Fogerty when he came on and Mark Brocklehurst did well too, as did the second rowers Kashley Watkins and Saqib Murtza.”
Roughyeds’ next game:
Wednesday (A),Whitehaven
