DEWSBURY team boss Liam Finn refuses to accept that the Rams are cast-iron certs to lift the Betfred League One championship and thus win promotion back to the Championship at the first attempt.
While third-placed Oldham were winning 28-18 at Workington last Sunday, Dewsbury were beating second-placed Doncaster 26-12 at the Flair Stadium.
Finn’s men are now the only team in the division who’ve won every game and they’ve opened up a four-point lead at the top although Finn is conscious that the Dons have a game in hand and that Roughyeds have two.
Dewsbury are clearly in a very strong position, but if Roughyeds can beast them tomorrow, Stu Littler’s side will keep up the pressure on them, even though you would expect the Dons to put a few points on London Skolars.
Roughyeds haven’t yet been beaten at the Vestacare Stadium so something has to give, either Dewsbury’s 100 per cent record or Oldham’s unbeaten tag on home territory.
The champions go up automatically and the next five enter a play-off competition, the winner of which is also elevated to the Championship.
There are only two Lancashire teams in the division of ten, third-placed Oldham and sixth-placed Rochdale, so it can be reasonably claimed that Roughyeds are flying the flag for Lancashire in a competition which has been dominated so far by Yorkshire with some pundits tipping Dewsbury to go up as champions and Doncaster to join them as winners of the play-off.
Littler prefers his lads to do the talking on the field rather than make rash promises, but whichever way you look at tomorrow’s full-house Vestacare showdown it’s going to be a crucial game which will reverberate across the upper half of the division, particularly in Doncaster where they will be wanting an Oldham win almost as much as we are.
The 21-man squads are as follows:
OLDHAM: Ah Van, Baker, Blagbrough, Brierley, Cameron, Hartley, Hirst, McNally, Meadows, Moran, Morgan, Nelmes, Newton, Paga, Ridyard, Slater, Thornton, Whittel, Wilkinson, Wilson, Yarrow.
DEWSBURY: Restall, Carr, Greensmith, D Dixon, Sykes, Turner, Beckett, Butterworth, Ferguson, Davies, Garside, Collinson, R Dixon, Jordan, Coventry, O’Connor, Littlewood, Morris, Graham, Frewin, Walker.
Rams have the leading try scorer in the division and the top goalkicker, namely full-back Owen Restall, who needs no introduction to Oldham fans, and stand-off Paul Sykes, oldest player in the division at turned 40, but still going strong.
Another familiar face in Rams’ ranks is that of young prop Jimmy Beckett, who scored the winning try for us when we beat Newcastle Thunder to clinch promotion to the Championship a year or two back.
Whatever happens tomorrow, it promises to be a cracker.
