Benson plays it safe with Boults

PROP Jason Boults, who has a groin injury, misses only his second game of the season at London Skolars tonight when Oldham drop the curtain on their 2010 Co-operative Championship One campaign.

He could have played at a pinch, but coach Tony Benson and his medical staff felt it would be wiser to rest him as a precautionary measure and give him a better chance of being fully fit for the crucial play-off game against York City Knights at Whitebank on Sunday, September 12.

Boults's fellow prop Luke Sutton will also miss the trip to White Hart Lane, partially because of a knee injury but also because his partner is to give birth imminently.

With two more forwards, Craig Robinson (broken finger) and Ian Hodson (knee), also ruled out, versatile Chris Clarke can expect to be used as a front-row man, sharing prop duties with Wayne Kerr and Dave Ellison.

New-boy Johnny Walker, who enjoyed an impressive debut in the second-row last time out against Hornets RL, keeps his spot in a 19-strong Roughyeds squad.

Centre Marcus St Hilaire didn't play against Hornets because of a shoulder injury, but he has passed a fitness check and is named in the party to travel.

Whatever the result, Oldham will finish as divisional runners-up, but victory would give them the distinction of having won each of their ten league games away from home.

Roughyeds (from): Ashe, Bentley, Brocklehurst, Chandler, Clarke, Ellison, Fogerty, Gillam, Heaton, St Hilaire, Kerr, Mansfield, McNally, O'Connor, Onyango, M Roden, N Roden, Walker, Whitmore.