The Lad

It looks like all rugby league will be suspended until April 4th, bad for Super League but worse for the lower league clubs.

With Ottawa Aces and New York coming in around 2021 to league 1 and apparently full time, what does this mean for rugby league?, will Super League suddenly welcome a 14 team league after years of being against it (I guess they were waiting for the right teams), will the north American teams take over or will they always occupy the space between Super League and Championship?.

It was a very good win, dominated the whole game and in every department, tackling, ball carrying and game management was far better, defensively i think that's the best i have seen since before last season. They were never out of their half for the first 20 minutes and when keathley could not match us they resorted to ruffing the game up. There was some things we could improve on we did do a lot of unforced errors and the way we panicked in the last 10 minutes of the first half which allowed them to score needs to be addressed. I thought the ref didn't have a good game, so many high tackles and slow plays of the ball and nothing given, there was a yellow card in the first half but nothing in the second, so inconsistent.

Yes it has been hard to get southern clubs to do well but we need clubs down south if we are going to grow the game, they only spread the talent because the governing body hasn't done enough to promote the game down there that's not Oxford or hemel's fault. Successful and nationwide with a great domestic and international brand, that turns a profit every year, who would want that?.

But it's expansion into the south that will help the sport grow.

Do we know how long they are on loan for?

After the first 2 games knowing now that super league is a diferent beast how do you feel the season is going, and where do you feel you will end up?.

Again that is down to marketing Why is that?, rather than just say they won't come back tell us the reasons why. It's very easy to say they won't come back but that doesn't help us at all, but the reason why she won't come back may help us to improve our game day exsperance.

It is a business, without that mindset the club folds. In two seasons we have only failed to play 3 of our scheduled games at home, it happens that 2 of them where against swinton. That is the point you haven't played there in 30 years, with the right marketing coupled with us being in Rochdale will get more attendances.

What evidence do you have we had no intention of playing?, the fact it was called off does not mean we had no intention of playing.

I thought it was a great documentary on a new rugby league club, nice interviews with players and staff and nice to see how the sonny bill williams deal came about.

I think a lot of your players need to step up, you seem to have kept a lot from last year and they seem to be top level championship low level super league it will be interesting to see how they go. Where do you think you will end up in the table this year?

I agree that you do not own a rugby league club to make money (with the exception of Toronto), oldham have just moved out of the town and with 2021 looming its important that a club represents a town they are in Rochdale haven't moved out of Rochdale, oldham just have and its been 25 years since swinton played in swinton. The reason the group wanted swinton to change to Manchester is because they hadn't played in swinton for 25 years and Manchester may have attracted new fans, they were trying to do you a favour. That's not a worry for us as we play in Rochdale.

I thought it was a close game, first half was split into 20 minute periods first 20 minutes was all oldham they played a lot of their ball in our half and defended well, but we managed to score. Second 20 was all us, we were aggressive in the tackle and scored some good tries. Second half was momentum swing back and forth. Oldham had a good ten minutes but failed to capitalise on it for the rest of the game and we seemed to make mistakes that allowed them time with the ball. Both teams dropped the ball on a lot of sets towards the end of the game. There was a lot of positives, we were aggressive without being dirty, we scored some nice tries and defended well. But we still made some poor handerling errors. But a lot to build on.

Go on the club website and look at the preview for rochdale vs Oldham, under team news you will find it. It says "The club can confirm the singing of Kenny Hughes for the 2020 league 1 season"