Naylor seeking Oldham response

FOR the first time in Scott Naylor’s two-and-a-half seasons in charge at Oldham RL Club, his out-of-sorts Roughyeds have lost two league games in a row.

Across all competitions, Naylor’s men have only ever suffered back-to-back defeats once before and that was early in his first season of 2013 when Rochdale won 28-18 at Whitebank in the league on March 29 and nine days later Hunslet won 36-10 at the South Leeds Stadium in the Challenge Cup.

Coming only seven days after the 32-24 loss at Keighley, yesterday’s 38-28 defeat by North Wales Crusaders was a bitter pill for Naylor to swallow in front of the best attendance of the season, 671.

The Roughyeds coach said: “It was our first home defeat in the league since April, 2013 and that’s an outstanding record in itself.

“I was sure we’d bounce back after the Keighley performance, but it wasn’t to be.

“To lose that record is bitterly disappointing, as it is also to see my team beaten in back-to-back league games for the first time since I’ve been at the club.

“We can count ourselves unlucky because of injuries and suspensions at the very time when we were playing some of the toughest games of the season, but all clubs suffer from things like that and the test now is how we respond to this adversity.

“I would like to thank the fans for coming out in numbers to support us and I hope they will stick with us as we work our way through this poor spell of form.

“I’m sure we’ll come out the other side all the stronger for having experienced it and I’m sure we’ll get back to producing the sort of rugby and the sort of form that our fans deserve.”