Roughyeds eye Forber swoop

OLDHAM RL Club say they haven’t given up hope of re-signing goalkicking half-back Carl Forber.

The 26-year-old former Leigh, Workington, Blackpool and Swinton scrum-half joined Roughyeds on loan from Swinton last April and finished the season as the club’s top points scorer with 146 from 63 goals and five tries in 14 appearances.

He played in all but three games to the end of the season and he has since been released by the Lions, giving him free-agent status as he strives to get fixed up with a contract for the 2012 season.

Oldham, meanwhile, have re-signed long-serving stand-off Neil Roden and promoted highly-rated reserve team half-back star Jamie Dallimore to the senior squad to provide coach Tony Benson with two specialist half-backs in a senior group that currently numbers 27.

Benson said: “Carl has had a few things to sort out relative to his personal life outside rugby, but we’ve room for another half-back and we are still talking to him.

“I think he would like to carry on at Oldham, but we’ll have to see how things develop. There are a few factors involved.”

A product of the St Helens academy, Forber had arguably the best two seasons of his career at Workington, where he was the division’s top points scorer with 254 in 2007, while in 2008 he played and scored in every Town game, totalling 229 points.

“We are still looking around to put the finishing touches to the squad,” added Benson.

“As well as another half-back I would like another full-back and another outside back, preferably another winger.

“The reason we haven’t filled any of these slots up to now is that I’m very definite about the type of players we need.

“If we have to wait a while longer, we'll wait.

“Some clubs look to have invested a little bit more this time on player recruitment, but we can’t do that and neither will we try.

“We’ll cut our cloth accordingly, and then it will be down to a lot of hard work — again.

“With a little bit of luck on injuries we should be there or thereabouts.”