OUR 30-2 win at North Wales Crusaders kept us ahead of the field in the Betfred League 1 ‘points against’ columns.
After three rounds we’ve conceded only 26 points and that’s ten fewer than our nearest challengers in table-topping Doncaster.
In three league games and two Ladbrokes Challenge Cup ties to date we’ve only let in, on average, a try per game and if you take away the York City Knights game, when they scored four, we’ve manned the barricades so well that we’ve conceded ONE try in FOUR games, three of them away from home.
Whitehaven were ‘nilled’, Halifax (cup) managed the one try by Ben Heaton and Crusaders on Sunday failed to score again after that early penalty goal.
In truth, they never looked like breaching our try line so there wasn’t much wrong with our defence, although lots of questions could be asked of what we did when we had ball in hand.
Maybe both sides were toiling somewhat after tough Challenge Cup ties in midweek. Whatever, Scott Naylor has already pointed out publicly that coaching staff and squad have a lot of work to do ahead of Friday’s game at Bradford Bulls, which kicks off at 6pm.
For the record we led 8-2 at half-time in the Crusaders game with first-half tries by Zack McComb and Joe Martin.
Following a half-time chat we looked a little bit more structured in the second half. We were always in control of the game and added four more tries at regular intervals — two of them from Danny Bridge, who had a big game, and others by Phil Joy and Joe Martin, who also looked lively when joining the attack from full-back.
His second try, near the end, followed a length-of-the-field dash after a Crusaders attack broke down near Oldham’s line.
Danny Bridge and Kenny Hughes were probably our stand-out players individually, but we will need to produce a much-improved team performance at the Provident Stadium, Odsal on Friday.
Oldham scorers in Wrexham:goals, Paul Crook (3); tries, McComb, Martin (2), Bridge (2), Joy.
A SEASON of missed opportunities and mutterings of ‘if only’ petered out to a disappointing end in a one-sided 47-0 defeat at Bradford Bulls in a Betfred League 1 play-off semi-final.
DESCRIBING Oldham’s 2018 season as one of the strangest he had ever been involved in, Scott Naylor said: “To be perfectly honest, I’m glad it’s all over.”