Rovers return is a bridge too far

ON THE RUN . . . Oldham prop forward Joe Burke heads into battle

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TAKING their only available 18 players to Hull KR, a Super League club in all but its current status, Oldham found it to be one "toughie" too far after surpassing all expectations in holding both Featherstone Rovers and London Broncos to a couple of points.

To put things in perspective, Rovers have a nice, modern stadium; 5,000 season-ticket holders (attendance here 7,268); big-name leaders in coach Tim Sheens and head of rugby Jamie Peacock MBE; and all the trappings of a full-time professional outfit, such as a 64-page match programme and hospitality guests who included legends of the game like Johnny Whiteley MBE and another former Great Britain star, Phil Lowe.

Also there to watch KR's eight-try 48-0 triumph was former deputy Prime Minister and ex-Labour MP for Hull East, John Prescott.

How utterly astonishing then that Roughyeds should go there nearly a year ago and thrash the 2015 beaten Wembley finalists 36-22 in the fifth round of the Challenge Cup. It would be perceived by many as the biggest cup upset of all time - and the one certainty about Oldham's return visit to the same East Hull dockside venue 11 months later was that KR wouldn't suffer such humiliation again by the same opponents.

Make no mistake, Oldham were on a hiding to nothing this time.

Publicly, KR played down the revenge aspect of their preparations but prop Nick Scruton, who didn't play in the last encounter, let the cat out of the bag pre-match when referred to the cup-tie in an interview with the Hull Daily Mail.

"I can't say we owe them one," he observed (meaning yes, we do owe them one), "but we need to turn up and we need to be focused."

CHALLENGE

Scruton didn't merely talk the talk. He had a superb game, marred only when he got himself sin-binned early in the second half for a dangerous challenge.

Oldham desperately needed to be at their strongest and at their best to at least give Rovers a game. As misfortune would have it - and they haven't had much going for them so far with two heart-breaking defeats by top teams - they lost prop Phil Joy with a dislocated shoulder and then discovered that, for the first time this year, there would be no dual-reg men available to them from Huddersfield Giants.

It left them with 18 available players, including forwards Liam Thompson and Ben Davies, neither of whom had laced a pair of boots in anger for several weeks.

In the circumstances, both did well; Thompson as a starting second-row man and Davies coming off the bench after 25 minutes.

Tuoyo Egodo, back in the centre after missing the London game with a chest injury, looked to be still troubled by it at times.

CONCUSSION

And there were more back division concerns for Roughyeds when Danny Grimshaw suffered a head injury after half an hour and was taken off with concussion, never to return.

Sammy Gee replaced him off the bench - another setback for the overworked forwards because it meant he wasn't available to be used in the pack.

KR set out their stall to smash Roughyeds into early submission before they could build any self-belief and after quarter of an hour they led 24-0 with tries by centre Thomas Minns, hooker Shaun Lunt, loose-forward James Donaldson and prop Scruton, all converted by Jamie Ellis, who finished with eight from eight.

Oldham were off to an awful start when Scott Turner fumbled Ellis's grubber into touch near the corner flag and from the scrum Minns scored in the opposite corner.

The big KR forwards roared relentlessly up the middle before bringing their backs into play to expose suspect Oldham defence, especially wide on the right.

Oldham saw little ball and when they did get hold of it they invariably spilled it, as did Keiran Gill direct from a scrum which paved the way for the home side's fourth try by Scruton.

One of several long passes that went wayward in the tricky wind opened up a chance for Jordan Abdull to score the fifth KR try for a 30-0 interval lead.

Roughyeds played much better in the second half, defending with more verve and vigour and applying more pressure to the KR defence.

They couldn't prevent further tries by Ellis, Moss and Minns, but they had a lot more of the play than they did earlier without ever inspiring confidence that they were sufficiently creative to crack the KR rearguard.