OL14.yeds

Stay safe folks. Hopefully the club isn’t hit too hard by this. There may be need for fundraising/fan activity to help in the future. Also, the NRL are playing some games behind closed doors, so you can still get your RL fix via Sky Sports or the NRL app.

The interview with the Barrow chairman was very interesting. They have the benefit of playing in the a stadium they own and take profits for food and beer etc. But they have been very forward thinking and willing to take a risk.

Seems really weird for a club to publish an article saying how bad their own attendances are on their official site. I get the idea of a rallying call, but calling it’s own attendances “desperately poor” and comparing it to other team’s doesn’t look good at all.

Poor completion rate, little creativity and at times far too sloppy in possession. Beaten by a Dewsbury side who ran hard and knew how to unpick our defence when they needed to. Disappointing after a promising start.

No Bent either unfortunately.

Given the Widnes and Bradford games, Dewsbury will want to get at us from the get-go. They looked like a hard running team in the OuRLeague footage last week, so we can’t be leaving it 20/30 minutes before we grow into the game. In terms of attack, if we’re looking at playing expansive, fast rugby, I hope we see more of the likes of Ince and Kershaw working the edges. Ince has a good record at this level (19 tries in 22 games last season for Widnes), a quarter of that wouldn’t go amiss during his loan spell.

There’s no doubt there is areas that need to be improved, but that’s perhaps to be expected for semi-professional clubs. I went on Sunday to my first Roughyeds’ game in a long while and despite the result (and the first ten minutes), really enjoyed it.

Simply can’t start games like we have done in the last few. The touchline defence just wasn’t there, and all Bradford had to do was give it to one of the big props to get it over the line. We also seemed a bit flat-footed in attack and lack intensity. However the second half was much better, and if you were watching online you may have thought the Bradfid fans had all gone home. If we start playing for 80 minutes we’ll pick up points against Swinton, Whitehaven, Batley etc.

Young centre Jack Croft has joined from Wakefield, and the club has announced a duel-reg agreement with Trinity. https://roughyeds.co.uk/2020/02/young-centre-arrives-in-new-dual-reg-agreement/

Oldham’s away shirt. Tidy.

It’s marketing. The thinking will be to have the away shirt on show as much as possible, and more people are more likely to buy it.

New away shirt looks good. Could be my first replica shirt since the 1996 ‘green slime’ away shirt when I was 7! After recently rekindling my love for RL I’m hoping to get to more games this season.

Exactly!

I’d have liked Oldham to have sorted a ground share at Broadhurst Park, it’s a decent small ground with good transport links. However, I think something was mentioned that only football can be played there.

He was wishing ourselves and Rochdale well in his League Express column a few weeks ago. Was pleased to see us go up and remembered some tough games back at Sheddings.