Boults targets big match

JASON BOULTS: leader of the pack - here against North Wales Crusaders

OLDHAM’S push for promotion from Championship One will continue without Jason Boults for at least the next month.

The long-serving Roughyeds prop broke a finger in training and will be out for four to six weeks.

At best that will put him out of the next three games against Gateshead Thunder and Oxford away, and South Wales Scorpions at home.

Next after those - five weeks from now on the last Sunday in July - is the big one: Oldham v North Wales Crusaders at Whitebank, the clash of the current top and second teams in the division.

Boults will probably aim to make his comeback in that game.

“My only target now is to get back as quickly as possible,” said 29-year-old Boults, elder statesman of a young Oldham pack.

“Four to six weeks is what they say, but I think I’ll be okay before then. It seems a long time.”

“We just need North Wales to slip up somewhere and if we can win our remaining seven games we’ll have cracked it.”

Oldham go to second-bottom Gateshead on Sunday while top-of-the-table Crusaders are at home to third-placed Rochdale Hornets — a game that will significantly change the placings of the leading group.



::To clear confusion over the team’s home game with North Wales on July 28: the game will definitely go ahead at Whitebank.

Some fixture lists mistakenly schedule that weekend for the Northern Rail Finals day at Halifax, in which North Wales will play London Skolars. The finals will in fact be played at The Shay on July 20, so there will be no clash.