Roughyeds clip RAF’s wings
Date published: 10 June 2014
TRIES by Phil Bickerstaff, Tom Flanagan, Ben Wood and Sam Singleton put the RAF rugby league team to flight at Whitebank.
Oldham under-20s won 24-12 despite having Richard Joy sin-binned for dissent in the first half, before either side had scored.
Full-back Tom Dempsey (17) sent in winger Bickerstaff for the opening try with a superb, cut-out pass and gave an outstanding all-round performance in which he landed four angled conversions from four attempts.
Behind a hard-working front five, which included senior squad members Wood and Paddy Mooney, loose-forward Singleton and halves Tom Flanagan and Jake Hughes also showed up well.
It was a tough, hard-fought battle on a wet pitch in which the RAF boys hit back from 12-0 down to go level at 12-12 with tries either side of half-time.
Wood’s try, goaled by Dempsey, put Roughyeds back in front at 18-12, after which it required a superb, try-saving cover tackle by Connor Partington on RAF right winger Simon Wray to maintain the home lead.
RAF team manager Ozzy Hicks, a flight sergeant stationed at Brize Norton and a member of Tony Benson’s backroom team at Oxford RL Club, said the tough work-out was exactly what his squad had been looking for.
He added: “It couldn’t have been better. For a lot of the game it was a trench-battle in the wet conditions and that’s when you find out what you need to know about your squad.”
Most Viewed News Stories
- 1Royton bar targeted online in case of mistaken identity in Charlie Kirk debacle
- 2Reform UK welcomes THREE councillors on Oldham Council
- 3Oldham council accused of ‘irresponsible’ spending in £40m borrowing hike
- 420-bed HMO plan at empty health centre approved despite hundreds of objections
- 5The £74-a-day nursery where toddlers ‘stand for extended periods’ for lunch and are ‘isolated...