Roughyeds saved the worst until last

FUNNY how sport can kick you in the teeth.

Or not, if you are Roughyeds chairman Chris Hamilton.

Having put the club back on an even keel with a new ground to call its own, Oldham enjoyed a season even its most optimistic supporters could not have foreseen last November.

Out with the old — many well-paid by rugby league standards — and in came the new, with those who stuck around in the absence of funds from previous benefactor Bill Quinn taking pay cuts.

But a reduction in wages didn’t result in a reduction in performances. With local lads like Mick Fogerty, Chris Clarke, John Gillam and Danny Whitmore brought in, the Whitebank Stadium felt like a real home.

Strangely, though, the best performances of all came on the road.

Early in the season, champions Hunslet were taken apart 29-16 on their own patch in a one-sided game which signalled the potential of Tony Benson’s slimmed-down squad.

And later on, fewer moments in the rugby calendar can have rivalled the superb try on the very last play of the game which won three points for Oldham in a 24-22 victory on the coast at big-spending Blackpool.

This was the first season in the club’s 134-year history in which a 100-per-cent success rate away from home in the league was recorded. It is quite an achievement.

Sadly, just when everything seemed set for promotion to the Championship, disaster struck in the play-off final.

York were comprehensively the better side on the day and deserved their win, but it remains a mystery to many just how the Roughyeds didn’t manage to perform to the standards previously set.

There is no sense in fans being despondent though, even if recurring long trips to Gateshead and London Skolars do severely test the patience.

Eventually, the club will get out of the game’s third tier. And next season seems as good a time as any.

But please lads, no more play-off finals if it’s all the same to you...