DANNY Bridge will be aiming to continue his try-scoring run when Oldham entertain Doncaster in Sunday’s Betfred League 1 top-four clash at the Vestacare Stadium (3pm kick-off).
The Oldham-born second-rower has scored at least one try in each of the Roughyeds’ last three outings — one against Newcastle Thunder, two against Hemel and one against West Wales Raiders.
With seven in total for the season he is only one behind top try scorer Zack McComb and as Roughyeds’ leading try-scoring forward he is one ahead of his second-row partner Danny Langtree.
The second-row strike force has formed a twin threat in every game this year and will doubtless be expected to do the same against The Dons.
Head coach Scott Naylor, however, has warned that if Roughyeds are to stretch their winning run to six league victories in a row they will need to heed the threat of a Doncaster backlash from their surprise home defeat by Hunslet.
Said Naylor:
“After that, they will have been itching to get out on the field again for the past couple of weeks.
“They were blowing teams away early in the season and Richard Horne (head coach) will be demanding a big reaction after losing at home to Hunslet.
“It makes Sunday’s game even more tasty because we pushed them out of third place. They will be anxious to get that back.
“Richard was a very creative player in Super League. He loves expansive rugby and you can see that in the way his team plays.
“They’re very good with ball in hand and to counteract that we’ll have to be as good defensively as at any previous time this season.
“Defending hasn’t been an issue for us (only Bradford Bulls have conceded fewer points), but we’ll certanly have to be on our mettle in that department on Sunday.
“I expect a close game, a real spectacle, something similar to the one we had with York.
“They’ve got some very good experienced players and Richard will have been at them all week because you can’t afford to lose two games in a row in this division.”
Oldham will pick from strength with dual-reg available as well as Wakefield Trinity’s on-loan teenagers Luke Hooley and Lee Kershaw.
Doncaster’s front-row will be strengthened by the loan signing of Hull’s young prop Lewis Bienek, a big lad and highly rated.
Doncaster face a tough June with away games at Oldham, Workington and Bradford and a home clash with Keighley.
Said Horne:
“These are the games you want to play in. I’ll find out a lot about my players in the next few weeks.”
