Littler: We gave ourselves a mountain to climb

Roughyeds boss Stuart Littler believes his men gave themselves too much work to do as they suffered their third defeat of the League One campaign against Dewsbury on Friday.

Dewsbury edged two scores ahead at half-time after they punished Oldham when they threw away several chances to get on the scoresheet.

The Rams eventually triumphed 20 points to eight.

They enjoyed a lot more field position than Oldham, who produced too many errors through knock ons, loose carries and forward passes.

“We gave ourselves a mountain to climb and we lost that battle for field position,” said Littler.

“We didn’t show the best of Oldham and we never gave ourselves an opportunity to do that.

“Our completion rate was not as high as we wanted it. Overall, it was 60% which tells its own story.

“We bombed a couple of tries, but we weren’t clinical enough and that is what is the frustrating part.

“We’ve got to be better off the back of errors, because we are putting too much pressure on ourselves.”

With the League One title looking likely to go to Dewsbury, who edged further ahead, Roughyeds may have to battle it out in the play-offs where they could meet Doncaster twice.

Littler stressed the need for everybody to stick together ahead of the run-in until the end of the season.

“We have to pull together and come out fighting now,” he said.

“We’re still in the hunt for promotion, we still have a lot of quality in our group.

“The error count is too high currently, so we have to work on our individual and collective skills.

“Some of our defensive systems were broken down in the first half, which we will look at to make sure everybody knows their roles.

“The club, board, staff, players, everybody connected to the club – we are all hurting, but we will only get better by pulling together and challenging each other at training.

“We need to put our best foot forward on the field, ask questions on where we can improve and get ourselves right for this run.”

Meanwhile, on a much sadder note, Ben Heaton, the former Oldham, Halifax and Hunslet utility back, has died at the age of 33 after retiring from the sport 18 months ago.

A Rochdale man, Heaton started and finished his sporting career at Oldham, but he spent most of his decade in rugby league at Halifax where he scored 53 tries in 135 appearances, mainly in the Championship.

He had seven seasons at The Shay before spending a year at Hunslet and then finishing off at Oldham where, in two spells, he scored 23 tries  in 54 games.

His best season at Oldham (13 tries in 19 games in 2011) precipitated his move to Halifax.

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