Hard work ahead - Naylor

Photo: -DAVE MURGATROYD-

OLDHAM’S Steve Roper takes a blow to the face as he tries to burst through the Keighley Cougars line of defence.

HAVING lost their last two away games at Barrow and Keighley, Scott Naylor’s Oldham have a chance to redeem themselves when North Wales Crusaders come to Whitebank on Sunday.

Crusaders are the bookies’ favourites to win Kingstone League One and they will arrive buoyed by having already tasted victory once at Whitebank this year — 18-16 in the new iPro Sport Cup semi-final, a competition they went on to win.

Roughyeds coach Naylor said: “After what happened at Keighley we have a lot of hard work to do.

“We also need to start taking long looks at ourselves in the mirror to get a few reality checks.

“At Keighley some of the lads gave their usual 100 per cent - but not all of them. You need

everyone to be at it from the start, not just in the second half once they’ve had a roasting at half-time.

“Cougars set off full of passion and intensity and we failed to match it. We can’t afford a repeat performance next Sunday.”

Roughyeds trailed 26-0 after an inept first half, but with wind and slope in their favour they came out for the second half and smashed it 24-6 with tries by Steve Roper, Oliver Roberts, Lewis Palfrey and Josh Crowley.

A brilliant individual try scored and converted by Paul Handforth, the Cougars’ only score in the second half, kept Oldham at bay.

Oldham full-back Steven Nield was led off with a knee injury after half an hour. Sammy Gee went from centre to full-back and dual-reg man Oliver Roberts, a back-row forward, left the bench to fill-in at centre.

“The Roberts switch was forced on us, but I felt he did very well at centre. The same goes for Sammy Gee at full-back. Both did really well,” said Naylor.

Derby rivals Rochdale have taken over as League One leaders, heading a group of several clubs on 12 points.