Bert Street

I was sorry to read of the death of Cliff Hill. One of my early favourites and a key part of what was, very briefly, a very good Oldham team in the early seventies. An extremely classy player.

Have a go, say I. Mount Pleasant always suited a strong pack and that's our strong suit.

Once played in a game when the opposition were nine points behind and the ref awarded them a penalty try in the final minutes. Once they kicked the first goal, which was under the sticks in any case, he then awarded the penalty in front of the sticks and allowed them to take a tap penalty! Not happy!

Love to be wrong!

This has gallant failure written all over it.

The statistics around two of our players in creative positions are telling. If Owen and Charnock are involved in over 70 attempted tackles, they won't be too fresh to do much creating.

Was this the one when Scott Gibbs was sent off for leading with the elbow?

Happily, my ignorance is blissful in this matter.

Fair result. Wouldn't mind seeing their half backs playing with our pack. Watched Featherstone vs Bradford last week and would say we are much better placed than Bradford.

The announcement of the name of the referee at Watersheddings generally brought a fairly ribald response. For years I thought Fred Lindop's first name was Bloody.

Mal Reilly and Roger Millward really ought to have honourable mentions here.

As an Oldham supporter, I would caution against leaving a dedicated rugby league facility to share with a football club, unless there is an absolute, set in stone equal rights and ownership agreement.

Oldham never getting to Wembley.

Interesting points. I think at that stage British rugby league had pretty well absorbed the fitness and conditioning lessons after the revolution of 1982 and were well on their way to competing internationally in all games. What the change from 5 to 10 yards did was to change the balance completely to an athlete driven game rather than a craft game played by athletes. What then happened globally in 1995 meant that the game had to be an event for a mass audience and also had to compete for player share with rugby union. The former certainly meant that the game had to become ever simpl

Am a little out of touch with modern law changes. However, the 40/20 Law was a brilliant innovation and rewards skill. The worst of the lot which has completely changed the emphasis of the game is taking back the defensive line ten yards rather than five. Half way through a season in the early nineties from recollection Changed the way the game was played overnight. Made clever ball players largely redundant, elevated trundling forwards into superstars and allowed a breed of half backs who rarely came into contact with the opposition and could play whilst running backwards.