Plenty to shout about

NEIL RODEN . . . the outstanding stand-off says backing from the fans gives the players confidence.

IT is a familiar scenario.

Oldham Roughyeds take on York at the Whitebank Stadium on Sunday (3pm kick-off) hunting down yet another play-off final appearance.

Few would have predicted — far less, wanted — to be looking at four successive showpiece occasions.

Within that run lies the unpleasant truth that the Roughyeds have failed to make it past Featherstone, Doncaster and Keighley in the past three seasons.

On not one of those occasions, though, did Oldham progress to the final at the first time of asking. And that is what coach Tony Benson hopes to achieve at the club’s new home this weekend.

York will be anything but pushovers, despite finishing the Co-operative Championship One regular season a huge 13 points in arrears of second-placed Oldham.

The Knights came to the Whitebank back in May and won 34-28 to well and truly spoil the party marking the club’s first-ever game at their new home.

The hope from a Roughyeds perspective is that the defeat for Benson’s boys on that momentous day won’t weigh too heavily on the players’ minds.

One man experienced enough not to let past defeats affect him is Neil Roden, who came a close second in the player-of-the-year stakes to irrepressible full-back Paul O’Connor.

Stand-off Roden has rolled back the years with some superb midfield play this season and he believes that the vocal home fans can play a big part in guiding the team to another finals day in Warrington.

“We’ve been well supported all year,” Roden said. “But there’s no doubt that having your home fans around you gives you an extra lift.

“It’s great to hear the fans shouting their support from the side and it gives the lads a huge confidence boost and encourages us to play even better so hopefully we’ll have a big turnout for the game against York.”

Oldham settled their York score in the regular season with a 33-18 victory at the Huntington Stadium a month ago.

And Roden believes that the homework that has been put in should pay dividends.

“We had a good win against York not that long ago in the season,” he added.

“That will give us some confidence, but they beat us earlier on in the season at our place as well so it’s going to be a tough match. They’ll be confident that they can beat us again and we’ll have to work hard to prove them wrong.

“We’ve been training hard and we’ve had a few weeks off to work and concentrate on the fixture. We’ve known for a few weeks that we’d be playing York so we’ve been studying them and hopefully we’ll be ready for them on Sunday.”