WE are pleased to confirm that we will play the first of two pre-season games against a strong Featherstone Rovers side at the Millennium Stadium (Post Office Road) on Saturday, March 6, kick-off 1.30pm. The game will be played behind closed doors.
Our second warm-up game will be announced tomorrow (Tuesday) morning at 10am, simultaneously in arrangement with the other club involved.
By arranging a game at Featherstone we will be testing ourselves against a Betfred Championship powerhouse and a club that has never made any secret of its Super League ambitions.
Rovers were beaten by Toronto Wolfpack in the 2019 Million Pound Game and they were among the clubs who lost out to Leigh Centurions when the decision was taken a few months ago to find a Super League replacement for Wolfpack.
Said Roughyeds boss Matt Diskin:
“Rovers are regarded as one of the best and biggest clubs in the Championship and rightly so. Historically, they’ve always been there or thereabouts at the top end of the division.
“They have a top-quality squad which is well coached and I’m pleased to be going there because the game will give me a good barometer of where we are up to — and that’s what we want from our warm-up games.”
Oldham’s new-look squad of 28 includes 13 newcomers, six of whom are Yorkshiremen — Tyler Dupree, Martyn Reilly, Luke Nelmes, Tommy Brierley, Shaun Pick and Liam Kirk.
Rovers boss James Webster, whose side will also play a friendly against Batley, said:
“As a group we are excited to be closing in on the start of the season. As you start friendlies you always get anticipation that competitive rugby is around the corner.
“It’s fantastic that both Oldham and Batley have agreed to play us. We will be facing two strong, well-coached sides. We will be using as many players as are physically ready so that we can prepare for the contact element that players have obviously missed now for 12 months.”
Rovers believe they have assembled their strongest squad for a long time, having signed Junior Moors (Castleford), Kris Welham (Salford), Craig Kopczak (Wakefield) as well as Connor Jones and Tom Holmes, also from Super League, and Nu Brown from the NRL.
