Hornets swarm after strong Oldham start

Photo: Tim Bradley

CRASHING HOME . . . Phil Joy of Oldham (centre) gets over the line.

WITH four former Roughyeds and three Oldham-born lads in their 17, Hornets were up for this one big style.

They looked primed and well prepared for the Championship challenges that lie ahead whereas Scott Naylor's men, fielding the last 13 men standing in a threadbare and injury-depleted squad, faded alarmingly after a decent first 20 minutes.

Early on, they had heaps of possession and pressed relentlessly, three times winning back-to-back sets by trapping Hornets in-goal. Five of the first six penalties also went Oldham's way, but they were restricted to one try by Phil Joy, who crashed over by the posts on a flat pass from Gareth Owen at dummy-half. Scott Leatherbarrow added the goal.

TOP-DRAWER STUFF

Rochdale's defensive desire was top-drawer stuff all the game, but early on it was phenomenal as underlined when they got numbers in the tackle on George Tyson, held him up and forced him into touch on the first tackle, not once but twice.

They were to similarly torment Tyson a third time in the closing stages of a fiercely-fought Law Cup battle which had a few skirmishes and which ended with the Oldham centre and Rochdale sub Paddy Jones sent off for fighting on or immediately after the final hooter.

The way Rochdale targeted Tyson and used the touch line as their ally provided the game's defining moments.

It was legitimate, legal, within the laws of the game - and it sent out a message, as did the high-fives and back-slaps that followed, that Rochdale meant business. Somehow, you couldn't see them losing if they could handle Oldham's talisman like that.

Four times in the first 20 minutes alone, the visitors' sledge-hammer tackling forced the error, and it was from one such knock-on that Hornets drew level with a great try by full-back Chris Riley direct from the scrum.

Joining the line at speed, he had the legs to make the outside break and score in the left-hand corner, following which Lewis Palfrey added the goal off the touchline.

Palfrey was to test Chisholm with several bombs which the winger dealt with admirably as Oldham managed to hold their own for the remainder of the first half while attacking down the Bower Fold slope.

It was a different story after half-time when Hornets were attacking the bottom end and Oldham started to err again.

Hornets forwards were well on top by now and Oldham crumbled as the visitors made the game safe with three tries in 15 minutes by centre Jordan Case, loose-forward Gary Middlehurst and strong-running centre Lewis Galbraith.

Big prop Samir Tahraoui kept the pack rolling forward and Oldham had no answer to the relentless pressure they applied.

Hooker Ben Moores fashioned the tries by Case and Middlehurst and Galbraith wrapped it up by squeezing in at the corner on a pass from influential scrum-half Danny Yates.

With everything going Rochdale's way you could put your mortgage on Palfrey landing his fourth goal and his third off the touchline for a 24-6 lead.

Oldham scored a late consolation try when a Tyson kick bounced off a defender and into the path of Owen. Leatherbarrow, awarded the Oldham RL Heritage Trust trophy as Oldham's man of the match, kicked the goal.

Yates picked up the Karl Marriott Trophy as Rochdale's top gun before Palfrey was presented with the Law Cup, just one year after lifting it in Oldham colours.