Miles better, but no reward

Oldham break through the lines

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DESPITE Miles Greenwood’s brilliant game at full-back, out-of-touch Oldham slipped to another disappointing defeat at Whitebank.

They’ve gone five league games without a win and are now four points adrift of the promotion pack as the Championship One campaign heads towards its half-way mark.

In fairness, Whitehaven had to battle exceptionally hard in defence to earn their 26-16 triumph.

Roughyeds lacked nothing in effort and honesty, but they never looked like winners because the Cumbrians were mean and menacing in defence and Tony Benson’s men didn’t have the guile or creativity to make any serious impact.

Two of their three tries were the direct result of Graham Holroyd’s speculative and towering up-and-under kicks which had Craig Calvert and Loz Hamzat in all kinds of trouble as the bombs descended from a clear sky.

By contrast, the ball went through hands in the build-up to each of Whitehaven’s four tries by hooker Sam Gee, centre Max Wiper and left-wing Calvert in the first half and by prop Dave Houghton in the second.

It then needed a superb last-ditch tackle by Greenwood on the last play of the game to stop Lee Doran scoring the try that would have denied Roughyeds the bonus point they undoubtedly deserved.

Greenwood was the game’s stand-out performer in his best game yet in the Oldham jersey.

He was his side’s most dangerous broken-field attacker and showed as early as the 18th minute, when returning a kick from Jamie Rooney, which he had the speed and confidence to turn defence into attack in the twinkling of an eye.

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Coming up the hill, he left numerous defenders in his slipstream before going past full-back Andreas Bauer only to be caught by the covering Calvert.

A quick play-the-ball set Lucas Onyango in search of the ’Haven line, but this time it was the visitors’ other winger, Hamzat, who moved in at speed to come to his side’s rescue with a try-saving tackle.

If Calvert got the better of Greenwood on that occasion, the tables were turned in the second half.

Few would have backed against Calvert when he collected a Jamie Dallimore kick to race out of defence and up the left touchline, but Greenwood perfected the angle of his run before taking the Whitehaven flier into touch 10 metres out.

Those were some of the game’s more exciting moments in what was generally a hard slog between a side low on confidence and in the middle of a bad run and another that had steadily improved its level of performance in its last few games.

Injury-hit Oldham welcomed back Mark McCully at centre and Alex Thompson and Danny Whitmore on the bench and introduced on-loan new boys David Tootill at prop and Lewis Reed among the subs.

They were still without Shaun Robinson, John Gillam, Chris Clarke, Paul Smith, David Ellison, Neil Roden, Luke Stenchion and Paul Noone.

It took Whitehaven, playing down the slope first half, only six minutes to take the lead.

Referee Chris Leatherbarrow seemed to get it wrong when giving ’Haven head and feed after a fumble and in the next set, after a powerful break by PNG international centre Jesse Joe Parker, Gee went in for a try which Carl Rudd improved.

Greenwood’s huge break put Roughyeds back on top and the Cumbrians were fortunate not to get a defender sent to the sin-bin for slowing-down tactics as the home side piled on the pressure.

This was the only time in the first half that Oldham turned pressure into points and it happened when Thompson went close before Cookson, from dummy half, planted the ball one-handed on the line.

So far, so good.

’Haven, however, were to rattle in 12 points inside eight minutes in the run-up to half-time and that, ultimately, was to prove decisive.

Centre Wiper exposed some suspect Oldham defending to crash over for a try which Rudd improved beautifully off the touchline.

Then the excellent Wiper did enough with ball in hand to commit Cookson and Onyango to the tackle before producing a peach of a pass which sent Calvert up the touchline and in at the corner. Rudd duly obliged once again.

A Rooney penalty pushed ’Haven into a 20-4 lead early in the second half and although Oldham scored two tries to one in the final quarter of the game, the damage had already been done.

In between the Holroyd-inspired smash-and-grab tries by Cookson and Brocklehurst, Doran set up a try for Dave Houghton close to the Oldham posts, which Rooney converted.

Brocklehurst’s try put Oldham into bonus-point territory, then came Greenwood’s try-saving challenge on Doran which earned the bonus as the final hooter sounded.

Oldham wouldn’t be Oldham this season if they didn't suffer an injury setback. It came, sure enough, with only 10 minutes on the clock when second-row man Valu Bentley was forced to quit with a pulled calf muscle.

New-boy Reed, who was scheduled to go on at prop as a replacement for Jason Boults or Tootill, had to fill-in for Bentley for the rest of the game, which meant there was only one spare prop, Liam Gilchrist.

Gilchrist, in fact, took his chance with both hands. He and Boults both worked tremendously hard, while Tootill got a lot of offloads away.

For most of the game Oldham’s back-row comprised of a trio of youngsters in Michael Ward, newcomer Reed and Thompson.

They couldn’t have worked harder or been more committed, but the challenge proved that little bit beyond them, as it did for most members of the side.