Hornets left broken by demolition job
Date published: 15 August 2011
Photo: PICTURES by CHRIS SUNDERLAND.
SHEER JOY: Man-of-the-match Danny Whitmore celebrates his score with departing Roughyeds prop forward Luke Sutton.
Rochdale 16, Oldham 38
LUKE Sutton said farewell to Oldham with a rattling good show in the front-row.
He wasn't alone. Ben Heaton, Shaun Robinson, Neil Roden, Danny Whitmore and Callum Casey also looked a class apart as Roughyeds took Spotland by storm in the second half of this seven-try derby demolition job.
It was a personal triumph for hooker Whitmore, who wrought havoc from dummy half with an eye-catching man-of-the-match performance in his first senior appearance for several weeks.
Having dropped to third in the pecking order behind Martin Roden and John Clough, he was given the nod ahead of Clough for this one and he didn't need asking twice to grab the opportunity.
Replacing Roden off the bench after 20 minutes, the youngest of the trio at 22 produced his best-ever display in the jersey of his home-town team, causing Hornets' defence close to the ruck to become panicky, totally confused and riddled by self-doubt.
Astute footballer that he is, young Casey quickly saw what Whitmore was up to, pushed up with him at every opportunity and helped to kick-start the momentum that produced four Oldham tries in 16 minutes early in the second half.
After the first half hour, in which rival forwards had flexed their muscles, such was the Roughyeds' domination of possession and field position that they clocked up six unanswered tries with four Carl Forber conversions — 32 points without one in reply.
Early on, Jason Boults, Martin Roden, Luke Stenchion and Valu Bentley did the job that was expected of them by taking the sting out of the Hornets forwards and constantly asking questions of John Cookson and Richard Mervill, the Hornets props.
Further out, Paul Noone on the right and Danny Bravo on the left made sure Oldham's outside backs had enough support to provide the visitors with touchline-to-touchline authority across the full width of the pitch.
Playing in that environment, Oldham's half-backs Neil Roden and Forber couldn't go wrong. They totally outplayed Paul Crook and Liam McGovern, with Rochdale's biggest threat posed by that old war-horse Phil Wood.
Crook did manage to fashion the first two Rochdale tries for Dale Bloomfield and David Newton with kicks into the in-goal area, but Neil Roden took the game by the scruff of the neck to mastermind Oldham's reply.
First, he cleverly used the short side to send in Heaton at the corner and then he scored himself after Whitmore and another substitute, Michael Ward, had made the initial drives to the Hornets posts.
Roughyeds boss Tony Benson timed to perfection the introduction of his four subs — Whitmore, Sutton, Casey and Ward.
Aussie-bound Sutton and Ward, in his first derby, continued where Boults and Stenchion had left off, while Whitmore and Casey added extra speed and sparkle to Oldham's attack at the very time that Hornets were starting to show signs of wear and tear.
Whitmore crossed from dummy half close to the posts with the second half only two minutes old, and two sets later Casey exploded for the line to put the finishing touches to superb handling and support play by Whitmore and Mark McCully.
Hornets, by now, were in trouble as Roughyeds mounted attack after attack. Heaton swivelled around two tackles to score his second after another Casey break. Then Robinson swept through Wayne English's challenge to score the sixth Oldham try on the back of excellent approach play by Bravo.
Near the end, Marcus St Hilaire made it a magnificent seven when provided with the overlap wide out thanks to quick movement of the ball from left to right featuring Martin Roden and Noone.
Hornets were unlucky not to make more of a couple of Wood-inspired attacks, but they finally got some consolation when Steve McDermott found a rare chink in Oldham's defensive armoury for Mark Hobson to score.
