Featherstone overpower Oldham

Oldham coach Tony Benson was pleased with his side’s first half performance, despite the 68-0 defeat to Featherstone in the Northern Rail Cup on Wednesday night.

The Championship 1 side restricted Rovers to three tries at the first half, and were still in with a chance at the break, only to be blown away in the second half.

Tangi Ropati crossed early on for a try on his debut, before Liam Finn and Jon Grayshon added tries before half time.

Benson said: “We were actually good in the first half. It was only 14-0 at half time and we’d had three tries disallowed. We were up there with them for the first half.

“In the second half they got repeat sets on us and scored from them, so we had a 10-minute period where we were just tackling. We had a bit of a collapse then. In the second half we only 10 sets, while they had 26. We just tackled the whole time.”

In the second half, Finn added two more, Grayshon grabbed his second, while Andy Kain (3), Ian Hardman (2) and Greg Worthington also got on the scoresheet.

Oldham now face a trip to South Wales at the weekend to face Scorpions in their second Northern Rail Cup game.

Benson is unaware of any major injuries to have emerged from the midweek fixture, although the Roughyeds’ squad will be assessed over the next 48 hours.

“They’re an unknown at the moment,” Benson adds. “They’re like us in that they’ve not had many games, but every team is a threat.”