SCRUM-HALF Dave Hewitt will be back at Oldham in 2021 for his fifth full season with the club — and his decision to sign a new one-year deal, he said, was a ‘no-brainer’ once the offer was on the table.
“I was never going anywhere else once I knew the club wanted me to stay,” said the former St Helens product (24), who made his Roughyeds debut when he was 19. “Next year will be my fifth full season with Oldham and I’m made up about it.
“The Championship is a really tough division, one of the best, but I think we might surprise one or two people next year. We’ve signed some good players already and I think that, at the very least, we’ll be competitive.
“Dougie (Lewis Charnock) and Fletch (Matty Fletcher) are on two-year deals; ‘Langers’ (Langtree) has signed a new two-year agreement; Nelmsy (Luke Nelmes) will add a lot to the middle unit; I’ve heard good things about Tyler Dupree; and now the Wilky (Matty Wilkinson) signing has been announced. That’s great stuff.”
Furthermore, head coach Matt Diskin said he was “really happy” to get Chewy’s signature on a new contract too.
He added:
“We’ve been working on his game to get the best out of him and we’ll be continuing to do that when we can get back into squad training. We are pleased with how it’s going and very excited that he will be back with us next year.
“We want him running at the line more and fully utilising his left-foot step. It can be lethal when used right and used at the right time.”
‘Chewy’ — as he is known across the sport — initially came on loan from St Helens in the summer of 2015, but he then had a full season at Sheffield as a full-time pro before returning to Roughyeds to make the scrum-half spot his own in the seasons that followed.
He has now totalled 101 appearances in the Roughyeds jersey, scoring 34 tries and kicking 85 goals plus two drop goals to amass 308 points.
Unlike most players at Oldham and throughout the sport, Hewitt has welcomed the enforced break caused by COVID-19 because of a pile-up of work and family issues which coincidentally came all at once.
He said:
“To be honest, Lockdown came at the perfect time for me because, even without rugby, it’s been a whirlwind few months for me on the domestic front.
“We had the upheaval of moving house just as Lockdown started and then, on April 21, my partner Tara gave us our baby boy, whom we called James, David, Michael — James after a grandad I never knew, David after me and Michael after my dad.
“As a buyer, I’ve been working from home all through Lockdown, but only in the last few days I’ve started a new job at Huyton in Health and Safety, so that’s been another big change in lifestyle.
“It’s been a hectic period for both of us, but it’s all been good and now that we are starting talking about signing players again for next year I’m starting to get back into rugby mode.
“We don’t know for sure yet when we’ll be back in for training, but now the domestic whirlwind is behind us I’m looking forward to it immensely. I can’t wait.”
