ASSISTANT coach Peter Carey said that, from Oldham’s point of view, there was a key message the players needed to take on board in the remaining games of the season; handling errors urgently needed to be eradicated.
He said the side’s commitment, honest endeavour and work ethic couldn’t be faulted, but far too much of the team’s good work was being nullified by costly mistakes in possession.
Said Carey:
“We can’t afford to keep making basic errors week after week and giving our opponents possession and field position.
“It means we are having a lot of extra defending to do which we shouldn’t have to do. And far too often we’ll get the ball back and then lose it again on play two or three.
“You can get away with it against some teams but not against the stronger teams in the division and certainly not against a team like Workington, who had a few old heads and knew exactly what to do in order to capitalise on the way we were playing.
“Losing Danny Bridge and Matty Wilkinson in the second half wasn’t good for us, but if the players are given a game plan they need to stick to it. We tend to stray from it at times and that’s usually when thing start to go wrong.
“All credit to Workington though. They came to do a job on us and it worked.
“They came with a plan to slow the ruck right down and they did it. They got away with it. It made us look very ordinary at times, but it all comes back to the key message: we’ve got to cut out the errors.
“When you look at the class and quality of the lads who were not playing because of injury it shows we are up against it at the moment, but in fairness the lads on the field battled their hearts out and we went very close to pinching it at the end.”
Town boss Leon Pryce said:
“Credit to Oldham. They’re doing it tough with injuries right now and I suppose it could have gone either way, although I felt we definitely deserved the win.
“They came to our place in April and made us look like children, so I suppose this shows how far we have come in the last few weeks and how much progress we have made. I couldn’t be prouder today for what we’ve achieved against a very strong and physical side who are well coached and always difficult to beat.
“This is a really, really tough division. Having spent all my time in Super League I was quite shocked by it at first but I’m coming to terms with it now..”
