STU Littler, our head coach, has named each of the 17 who beat Hunslet last week in the 21-man squad for this Sunday’s play-off derby at Rochdale Hornets, kick-off 1pm.
It’s a massive vote of confidence in last week’s line-up and it remains to be seen if it will be “as you were” at the Crown Oil Arena or whether Stu will tweak things by calling up one or more of his surplus four, namely Ben Holcroft, Jason Muranka, Liam Copland and Ethan Ferry.
Copland, a winger, had to pull out of the side with a leg injury late on last week and Will Cooke played on the right wing and did everything asked of him, showing exceptional speed on one occasion to beat the cover on Calvin Wellington’s pass only to fall to a magnificent Pat Walker tackle on the goal line.
Squad: Butterworth, Cameron, Cooke, Copland, Coventry, Ferry, Field, Hartley, Hewitt, Holcroft, Morgan, Muranka, Nelmes, Newton, Restall, Ridyard, Spencer, Thornton, Wellington, Whittel, Yarrow.
Hornets, meanwhile, will be at their strongest on paper since coach Matt Calland departed the club a few weeks ago, to be succeeded by his No 2, Gary Thornton.
They had an astonishing 14 players unavailable for last week’s home defeat by Keighley, but six of them – Connor Aspey, Cobi Green, Scott Parnaby, Dan Brewin, Tom Whitehead and Ben O’Keefe – are named in Thornton’s 21.
Parnaby’s selection is the big surprise because the teenager from Waterhead has been in Italy with the England Community Lions squad for the past few days, playing at loose-forward against Wales in the semi-final of the European Championships.
Callum Murphy, also from Waterhead, was at centre and prop Dylan Turner, from St Anne’s, was on the bench – a tremendous achievement by the three Oldham lads and Parnaby gets his reward at the Crown Oil Arena tomorrow (Sunday).
Squad: McNally, Tyrer, Calland (Ben), Nixon, Chase, Fui Fui Moi Moi, Bennion, Taira, Aspey, Green, Killan, Foster, Parnaby, Roden, Worrincy, Hitchcox, Rush, Brewin, O’Keefe, Thomas, Whitehead.
Hornets have beaten Roughyeds twice in the league this season, winning 34-18 at the Crown Oil Arena in April and 50-24 at the Vestacare Stadium in July.
Both games, however, could have been very different.
Half an hour in at Rochdale, we led 6-2 and looked to be getting on top. It was the introduction of Sean Penkywicz, Fui Fui Moi Moi and Joe Taira off the bench which turned the game on its head but ‘Penky’ has since retired and half-back Lewis Sheridan, who made a stunning start to the season and had a top game in this one, is out injured.
In the return game at the Vestacare Stadium nearly three months later we led 24-6 at half-time and looked to be heading for a comfortable home win, but we perhaps dropped our guard in the second half when we allowed young prop Fenton Rogers, Penkywicz and, above all, that maverick maestro Rangi Chase to play lead roles as Hornets scored 44 points without reply.
Neither Rogers nor Penkywicz will be playing in this derby and Roughyeds will no doubt go into it with quiet confidence after playing some of their best rugby of the season against Hunslet last week.
Hornets boss Gary Thornton, who was in charge at the South Leeds Stadium for a long time, watched our performance that day and was suitably impressed.
He said:
“Oldham will be out for revenge (after losing twice to Hornets in the league). They will be well prepared; they have two good half-backs in Martyn Ridyard and Dave Hewitt, and they will come expecting to turn us over.
“I’m expecting them to be at their best and I’m expecting Rochdale to be at their best as well. It should be a very good game.”
Against Hunslet, Roughyeds conceded only three penalties, enjoyed a 94 per cent set completion rate in the second half and enjoyed the benefits of club captain Ridyard’s accurate goalkicking.
He kicked brilliantly and if Roughyeds can hold the Hornets forwards and thus limit the scope afforded to Rangi Chase, Riddy’s accuracy with the boot could be a key factor.
One thing we must not do is fall for the trademark Rangi dummy.
In the league game at Oldham he tried to break the line with it numerous times before it finally worked – and a try followed.
