Feeling just champion!

Photo: All pictures: DARREN ROBINSON

Adam Clay is mobbed by his team mates after scoring his side’s fifth try of the afternoon.

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OLDHAM 31, KEIGHLEY COUGARS 20

THEY didn’t bottle it this time. A champion team did a champion job and Oldham fans celebrated promotion long into the night feeling... just champion!

Whitebank had never seen anything like it; a record crowd, an all-dancing, all-singing Oldham team’s lap of honour and then a lively victory chant, led by Sammy Gee, which is normally confined to the dressing room but was given its second public performance in nine days.

The first celebration was in Oxford when Lewis Palfrey was presented with the league leaders’ shield by Paul Morgan, president of the RFL.

This time the Roughyeds captain received the Kingstone Press League One championship trophy from RFL chairman Brian Barwick at Whitebank — an endorsement of the club’s Championship credentials and a silver lining for everything Scott Naylor’s men have worked for his three years in charge.

This was the big one. Finishing top was great, but it would have counted for little if they hadn’t gone on to clinch promotion.

But it never looked in doubt. Only 11 points separated them at the end, but Keighley never led and they were visibly rattled by the two converted tries in the run to half-time that gave Roughyeds an 18-6 interval lead.

Beyond Paul Handforth’s excellent kicking game, a few offloads and the powerful play of Algerian giant Samir Tahraoui, Cougars couldn’t offer much to seriously threaten the best defence in League One.

Handforth didn’t deserve to be on the losing side - especially so when taking into account that he was operating behind a second-best pack that struggled to cope with the power play of Oldham props Adam Neal, Phil Joy, Liam Thompson and Michael Ward.

Thompson, whose form this season has been a revelation, had another cracker. And, once again, Naylor’s season-long policy of going into battle with three separate dummy-half specialists in Gareth Owen, Kenny Hughes and Adam Files worked like a charm.

Like so many other sides before them, Cougars couldn’t match the variety and the creativity Oldham could generate, first with Owen, then Hughes and finally with Files.

Lump together the power play of the props; the speed of the dummy halves; the controlling influence of half-backs Lewis Palfrey and Steve Roper and the constant threat from Josh Crowley and Danny Langtree outside the half-backs and one on either side of the field, and you have a compelling formula that has carried Roughyeds to 14 wins in a row.

The home side conceded two early penalties, but opened the scoring on the back of Keighley’s first infringement in the 13th minute.

Owen jumped out of dummy half and found Will Hope with a one-handed pass. Hope had Palfrey in support and Jon Ford took the final pass to score wide out on the left. Palfrey added the goal.

Keighley’s forwards were making little headway up the slope. They leaned heavily on Handforth kicks to get a foothold in Oldham’s quarter.

Running the ball out, the home side were pulled for a forward pass and from the scrum Cougars applied the pressure which earned their only try of the opening half.

Adam Mitchell’s grubber kick was lost in-goal by Adam Clay and Matt Bailey pounced to touch down. Lawton added the goal.

Oldham stepped up the tempo in the run to half time and blitzed the visitors with two tries; the first when Neal crashed in by the posts on Hughes’s flat pass and the second when Hughes and Roper sent Langtree over.

Without increasing their 18-6 interval lead, Oldham looked in total command in the first 20 minutes of the second half, but Handforth worked his magic with a cross-kick of unerring accuracy which dropped into the hands of winger Paul White, who cantered over in the corner.

As the game opened up, Roper and Palfrey got the dangerous George Tyson over to restore their 12-point advantage, after which Palfrey dropped a goal for a 23-10 lead.

To their credit, Keighley wouldn’t go away. Tyler Dickinson fashioned a try for Handforth, which Lawton improved.

A Palfrey penalty kept Oldham safely in front at 25-16, then victory was assured when Owen’s wide pass was knocked towards the visitors’ line by desperate defender and Clay raced over. Palfrey added the goal.

Oldham were home and dry; promotion was sealed; and it was time for the celebrations to begin.