Super subs kick Oldham into life

TRY TIME . . . Paul O’Connor forces his way over the Workington line, supported by his team-mates.

2 More Image(s) In Gallery

Workington 16, Oldham 28

IN THE supermarket directly behind Derwent Park, those entering the store were presented with a very prominent display of bodybuilding protein powders.

You could hardly miss it, reinforcing the old stereotype of sturdy Cumbrian men, built for hard graft.

And for a good 20 minutes of this encounter, it seemed that Workington’s bulk would be too much for Oldham to deal with.

On both sides of the ball, powerful Town were the stronger and more determined – and the 10-0 lead they established, following a run of three successive wins looked set to give Gary Charlton’s side another three points in Co-operative Championship One.

The Roughyeds were half asleep, still apparently suffering the after-effects of last week’s devastating 60-4 home thrashing by Hunslet.

Until, that is, the substitutes were introduced into the fray.

Hooker Martin Roden hobbled off with an ankle injury a quarter-way into proceedings and it appeared at that point that the visitors were doomed to a third defeat in four matches.

Not a bit of it. Danny Whitmore was simply superb as veteran Roden’s dummy-half replacement and fellow subs Dave Ellison and Luke Sutton provided the forward power necessary to meet – and more than match – that provided by the home side.

From the midpoint of the first half to the final few minutes, there was only one team in this peculiar clash.

And the way Oldham recovered to once again claim three points out of adversity has to be encouraging ahead of a massive clash against Blackpool at the Whitebank Stadium on Sunday.

The visitors started poorly in a first half which was split into two distinct parts – one with Workington well on top and the other featuring almost total dominance from Tony Benson’s men.

The game opened with a silly penalty conceded by scrum-half Matty Ashe at a play-the-ball.

It was followed by a strong drive by centre Andrew Beattie – one of no less than nine ex-Barrow players in the Workington line-up.

Beattie shrugged off three players and slipped out a pass to winger Mike Backhouse, who nipped in to provide the opening try in the left corner.

John Gillam was held up over the line as the Roughyeds tried to equalise, but Town’s pack was well on top in both attack and defence and this was a rare foray forward.

Liam Finch nearly sent Mike Whitehead in after 18 minutes, only for better defence to hold up the second row over the try line.

Then came Roden’s game-ending injury, which was almost immediately followed by a Workington try.

It was a clever effort too, wily veteran hooker Darren Holt dabbing a kick into the in-goal which was pounced on by Jarrad Stack just before he ran out of play.

Holt added the conversion for a 10-0 lead, leaving Oldham with an apparent mountain to climb,

Enter Jason Boults, catalysing a comeback by claiming a switch ball inside from Whitmore to cross for the visitors, with Ashe converting to cut the lead to four points just before the half hour.

Good defence prevented Beattie from reproducing his earlier trick and as play moved down the other end, Ellison powered home after hitting the line at pace deep in Workington territory.

Ashe converted and was soon teeing up again, this time after some wonderfully deft play by on-loan Gregg McNally – once of Town’s rivals Whitehaven – set up Mick Fogerty’s first try.

The centre benefited when McNally, running cross-field, elected to dab in an unexpected and perfectly-weighted kick to the in-goal while on a cross-field run.

An 18-10 lead at half-time was just the ticket for Oldham, who were rarely troubled after the break.

There were no further scores until just after the hour, when more alert play from Whitmore saw the hooker produce an excellent cut-out pass which enabled Fogerty to crash home his second try of the contest.

Three minutes later, more quick play-the-balls ended with Paul O’Connor crossing from close range and though Jamie Marshall sneaked home from dummy-half with just over 10 minutes left, there was no hint of danger for a very professional Oldham outfit.




We are on our our way back, insists coach



ROUGHYEDS coach Tony Benson admitted he was partly to blame for a slow start at Derwent Park.



Oldham slumped to a 10-0 deficit before finding their feet against Workington and Benson said that it was down to a low-key preparation, following the previous week’s high-pressure build-up to a heavy home defeat to Hunslet.

“We got off the bus a bit late,” said Benson, following what was in the end a comprehensive 28-16 victory.

“It was a long trip, starting at 8.30am, and the start wasn’t there.

“It was probably my fault. I tried to get a lower-key, more relaxed atmosphere coming into the game.

PUMPED UP

“It didn’t work, but you learn from that. It was after people being so pumped up all the time, just trying to calm them down.

“It didn’t go our way that first 20 minutes but we did stay in there and hung with them for that time.

“Then we hit our straps and things started to work for us.”

Benson praised the impact of his substitutes, in particular Danny Whitmore whose efforts at hooker following Martin Roden’s injury-forced exit proved vital.

“Whitty sharpened things up around the ruck and Dave Ellison and Luke Sutton also did their job in lifting things,” Benson added.

“It was a pretty good effort by a number of people. I was happy to have Marcus St Hilaire back, for his guidance.

“In the last 10 minutes we thought we had it won and totally took our eye off the ball.

“There is lots to fix. But the things we worked on during the week we did really well.

“Our attack was a lot better and we had no problem getting out of our own half.

“But the kicks we put on the end of it weren’t good enough and often went dead.”

Ahead of next week’s big home game with Blackpool, Benson feels his side are getting towards where they need to be.

“It was a much improved performance from Ian Hodson and all the back rowers. We were running much better lines this week,” he added.

“There was more ‘push’ and they were playing for each other, which was a theme of the game.

“I don’t think we are fully back, but the foundations are there and we can work on it for another week.

“It makes a lot of difference. We are all pleased to get the win and it is good to be back on the horse.”

The game ended with a dust-up as Roughyeds full-back Paul O’Connor reacted angrily to the latest high tackle on him, unseen by referee Matthew Kidd.

“He got three high shots on him and players got frustrated at the end. You almost can’t blame them,” Benson said.

“I’m not sure the opposition had Paul O’Connor’s face on their tackle bags, but it seemed that way.”