Oldham RU edged out at Leigh

Oldham RUFC travelled to Leigh with a squad that showed six changes from last week, and were beaten 32-22.

The game started in the same fashion as last week with Oldham conceding a try in the first minute.

Direct from the kick off Leigh scored under the post with some great interpassing.

Kicking the conversion put them 7-0 up.

Try as they might, Oldham had difficulty retaining possession and found themselves under pressure again.

It was only a good defensive tackle by Josh Molloy that saved a certain try.

To everyone’s surprise - including the Leigh players - they were awarded a penalty for a high tackle.

They put the ball into touch on the 10 metre line.

They quickly recycled the ball for the Leigh 10 to chip through and score near the posts.

He converted to take them 14-0 up with less than 10 minutes on the clock.

Oldham now started to get into the game.

From a lineout on the Leigh 22 they passed the ball along the line for Alex Jobson to kick through for Corey Kelly, who just failed to get to the ball before it went into touch on the Leigh line.

Leigh defended the line out well and found touch just outside their 22.

At the line out Jack Taylor took a great catch to allow the whole of the Oldham pack to drive 10 metres before getting the ball out to Tom Davies who put in a great pass to Molloy who slipped the ball to Kelly on the loop.

He drew the Leigh defence before passing to winger Jason Green to race over in the corner.

Jobson missed the conversion from wide out. 14-5.

The passage of play at this stage changed in the favour of Oldham.

They started to retain the ball and only just failed to score when Kelly chipped through for Jobson who just failed to get to the touch down before the Leigh defence.

The Oldham forwards were getting on top of the Leigh front five with some great line breaks from Isaac Dobbs, Cameron Wood, Brian Massey and Greg Higgins, but the first half ended with no further score but with Oldham looking the more likely to take the next score.

Unfortunately the second half started with a bizarre incident which would take the game out of Oldham’s grasp.

From a line out on half way Leigh passed along the line making a fine break through the Oldham midfield.

A try looked certain until a fine covering tap tackle by Andy Birch saved the day – or so they thought.

The referee eventually caught up with play and gave Birch a red card deeming that he had tripped the Leigh player.

Despite protestations from the Oldham team, and surprisingly from Leigh as well, the red card was not rescinded.

The video evidence clearly shows it was an ankle tap with the hand.

Strangely though, the referee only gave a penalty when in fact it should have been a penalty try, assuming of course he had made the correct decision about the red card.

It was a game changer.

From the resulting line out Leigh drove forward, then sucked in the Oldham backs who were now a man down to score in the corner.

The conversion was missed.

Now 19-7, shortly after they went on to score another unconverted try to make the score 24-5.

Surely things couldn’t get any worse, but they did.

Oldham were awarded a penalty and put the ball on the Leigh five-metre line.

A full line was set up but Rhys Jones passed quickly to Paul Wardle at the front who forced his way over the line.

Everyone stood up and the Leigh players stepped back – Oldham were back in the game – to everyone’s amazement the referee said Wardle was held up and disallowed the try.

Again the video clearly appeared to show he grounded the ball and was not held up.

Of course the ref doesn’t have the availability of VAR.

Oldham then failed to clear a kick through and the ball hit an Oldham player, cannoned to the line were Davies tripped whilst trying to clear and the ball fell nicely for Leigh to touch down. Conversion missed. 29-5.

Both sides were tiring at this stage of the game but it was Oldham who were looking stronger despite being a man down.

They took a line out 10 metres out, drove forward for Jones to score. Jobson missed the difficult conversion. 29-10.

From a scrum Davies put in a long pass to Massey who put Reece Blakely in space to go round his winger and outpace the defence to score a well-earned Oldham try.

The conversion was missed so it was now 29-15.

Both teams had good passages of play and it was Leigh who put over a penalty to make the score 32-15.

Oldham failed to give up and earned a four try bonus point when Blackley seized on a loose pass and raced over to score his second try.

Jobson converted to amke it 32-22.

That was the final score of the game.

Considering they played all the second half with 14 men it was not a bad result.

They never gave up, but with some bizarre decisions going against them it was always going to be an uphill task to compete against a strong Leigh side.

Corey Kelly was awarded the MOM with a fine display on the wing.

He produced some great runs out of defence and cover tackles throughout the game.

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