Home sweet home

ALL SQUARE: Oldham’s Richard Lepori races clear to score in the Whitebank meeting with the All Golds last season.

THERE’S no telling what the play-offs might cough up, but in the league fortress Whitebank will be defended on Sunday for the 10th and final time this season.

Nobody has scaled its ramparts for almost a year.

In 2014 Roughyeds have been called on to repel raiders from afar nine times and have done so, even though they came close a few times.

Sunday sees Gloucester arrive for a second time (3pm) and by then the All Golds will know whether they still have an outside chance of play-off qualification or whether they will be playing for pride alone.

A year on, Oldham can’t finish lower than third and any chance of moving up a slot would require bottom club South Wales to pull off a shock by turning over the powerful Hunslet side.

Gloucester’s hopes of sneaking into the fifth play-off berth took a severe blow last weekend when they were beaten at Hemel. The Stags go to Oxford tomorrow and anything other than a win for Tony Benson’s side by more than 12 points will condemn the All Golds to sixth place and a disappointing end to the season.

Roughyeds desperately need to erase the memory of their awful effort at Gateshead last week.

They lost three of 16 league games last year, but got a bonus point from each of their losses, two of which were by only two points.

In stark contrast they have managed one bonus point from four defeats out of 19 games, conceding 44 points a game on average when beaten.

At home, in an environment opponents often find intimidating, Naylor’s men are a different side to that which can seem lost in big stadiums, on wide pitches and out in the middle of an athletics track.

Agoraphobia needs to be conquered if Roughyeds are to do well in the play-offs, but of more immediate concern is the urgent need for the men in red and white to finish the league programme on a high.