Oldham handle late switches

RUGBY:

Windermere 10, Oldham RUFC 17
OLDHAM mixed attacking flair with dogged defence to register a deserved victory over the bottom side in North Lancashire Division One.

From the original squad selected for this game, Jack Hawkins, Jamie Edwards, Steve Hastings, John Gillam, Dean McEwan and John Souter were absent. But in came Jack Taylor, Sean Barrett and Guy Lovegreen which meant Oldham travelled with only 17 players.

And it was the determined visitors who made a brilliant start. Kyle Howard switched play and Gareth Barber fed Josh Brown, who made a superb outside break, drew the full-back and passed inside for the supporting Barber to score under the posts. Brown converted to make it 7-0.

Oldham’s defence held firm against a sustained battering and Barber relieved the pressure with a kick deep into the opposition half.

Then, after defending again for a full 10 minutes, the pressure finally told when number eight John Sheasby dived over from the back of a maul to score.

Oldham suffered a setback just before half-time when influential back row forward Mike Crouch was injured. Phil Graham moved to an unaccustomed position of number six, Howard switched to the wing and Lovegreen came on at scrum-half.

But Oldham made a fine start to the second half when Barber broke through to give a great pass to Brown, who ran strongly towards the Windermere line.

Just before he was tackled, Brown sent out a lovely looped pass which was well taken by Jordan McEwan, who raced into the corner to score.

For the next 10 minutes, it was all Oldham and it was only knock-ons which prevented more tries.

However, another strong run from Stuart Brennan and a superb pick-up from Taylor allowed Brown to get outside his opposing centre to draw the full back and feed Charlie Roscoe for a well-deserved try and 17-5 lead.

Oldham were in command, but when Lovegreen was sin-binned for a late tackle Windermere exerted tremendous pressure which the visitors did well to resist.

Windermere did break through thanks to James Curry, but by that late stage Oldham were home and hosed. Taylor was man-of-the-match for Oldham.