Kingstone Press League 1 Preview: Oldham v University of Gloucestershire All Golds

League leaders Oldham notched up a convincing win over London Skolars but coach Scott Naylor believes there’s room for improvement.

“I was pleased with the score line but the performance was a little bit off,” he said. “If I’m honest the score probably didn’t reflect the game, it was closer than that. We can improve, which is a good thing.

“We’ve got Gloucester this week, who have improved season-on-season since coming into the division, which is a testament to them as a club. They’ve won a couple of games already this season and we always seem to have tough games against them. It will be a good test for us this week, we’ll have to improve on last week’s performance.”

Winger Jarrod Ward, who missed last week’s game with a hamstring problem, should be back this week but centre Tom Ashton is unavailable.

Looking back on the 60-18 defeat to Swinton, University of Gloucestershire AllGoldscoach Lee Greenwood said: “It wasn’t nice to be on the end of that on Sunday. I thought we were a little bit better than that. It just highlighted a total lack of depth really, which I knew we had. We’re still looking to bring players in because the squad isn’t big enough.

“We’ll change a couple of things this week but it doesn’t get any easier. We’re certainly not shying away from it, that’s the level I want us to get to.”

Prop Ollie Purslow will be available this week following his one match suspension and forward Emmerson Whittel, who pulled out of last week’s game through illness, should be back.