O’Connor captures Chronicle crown

PAUL O'CONNOR: top of the list

PAUL O’Connor is the Chronicle’s player of the season for 2010.

The full-back, who cleaned up at the recent club awards night, was also recognised as one of the top three performers in all of Co-operative Championship One after an outstanding year.

Right behind is Neil Roden, the wily campaigner whose efforts for the Roughyeds during the year played such a major role in the club reaching the play-off final for a fourth successive year.

And next in line is local boy Chris Clarke, who has had a big impact since arriving on the first-team scene.


PAUL O’CONNOR: A hat-trick in the thrilling 24-22 win away at Blackpool showed exactly what the man universally known by the acronym ‘POC’ is all about — heart, heart, bundles of energy and skill and then a little more heart on top.
The season ended up with the same conclusion as usual, a defeat which stops Oldham getting the promotion the league table indicates they deserved. But it was still the best year of rugby that the former Widnes player has yet produced during his outstanding five-season association with the club.


NEIL RODEN: Before the disappointment of the final, every time ‘Rat’ had missed a game for Oldham in 2010 the team had ended up on the losing side. It was no coincidence.
Time may have put paid to most of the rapier-like runs through gaps in defences which have so far helped to bring Roden 98 tries for the club. His razor-sharp rugby brain, however, more than compensates. Roden struck up an excellent partnership with on-loan Gregg McNally at half-back and his subtle, sharp passes to send in players on the edges were a feature of the season.


CHRIS CLARKE: Who? Casual Roughyeds fans could be forgiven for not knowing much about the 21-year-old before this season started.

Few people don’t know about him now. A former Oldham St Anne’s prospect who suffered badly through injuries in his formative years in the game, Clarke grabbed the bull by the horns when promoted by coach Tony Benson to the senior squad this year.

Playing mainly in the front row or as an auxiliary prop at loose forward, the total commitment and graft of bulked-up Clarke led to him not missing a game all season when fully fit.