Best-ever season – and who did what in the march to glory!

Thanks to Mike Turner, the club's official historian, I can confirm that our 2024 record-breaking league season, with only one defeat at Keighley, was the Roughyeds' best-ever in terms of league defeats.

Take a bow all concerned, particularly head coach Sean Long, his No 2 Brendan Sheridan, chairman Bill Quinn and managing director Mike Ford, all of whom had a big say in what went on behind the scenes – either in finding the money to bring so many top players to the club, identifying them, preparing them for action or for instilling in them the attitude, togetherness and camaraderie which ultimately produced results and consistently-good performances from start to finish.

Longy was a brilliant player, but a bit of a wild lad. You've only to read his book to know that. He pulled no punches and told it as it was. But Bill Quinn identified at interview that here was a changed and much more mature man; a man who knew his stuff; a man who would set an example, who would manage his players intelligently, handle them cleverly off the pitch, was very experienced and a man who would fit snugly into the club's basic ethic that you would get nowhere without hard work, dedication and enterprise.

How many of you, when talking directly to Sean, have been surprised at his quietly-spoken demure, his shortage of 'edge' or his general willingness to listen and to accept your point of view?

Those immortal words: "The more you put in, the more you get out," fit perfectly into Longy's make-up. Like Bill Quinn himself, Mike Ford, and all those with special responsibility for the club's welfare, the Oldham coach has done a great job in his first season and nobody, but nobody, can argue with what he has achieved.

He had the right players and the right tools – Bill, Mike and the board saw to that – but there's a lot more to this coaching lark than most people would ever imagine. Who, for instance, would ever expect Longy, an attacking scrum-half of sheer brilliance and searing pace, to be besotted by today's big thing – defence? And please don't tell me that Betfred League One is easy meat. It isn't. Standards generally have gone up beyond recognition. For instance, nobody goes to Midlands Hurricanes or to North Wales Crusaders these days and expects an easy ride – and I speak of a Welsh team that finished third bottom and didn't even make the play-offs.

So well done Sean. The figures speak for themselves. Nineteen wins from 20 games in the league, but even more significantly 885 in the 'for' column and only 144 in the 'against' – an average win of 40-7.

To concede fewer than eight points a game, across a league season, with SEVEN shuts-out and FOUR consecutive defensive nils in home games is absolutely remarkable. As Mike Ford says: "The greatest accolade I can give any rugby team is to stop the opposition scoring a single try." So speaks a man who, as a player, was better known for his creativity than for his defensive prowess. He was a very different type of player to Sean Long, but both wore '7', both were better known for things other than defence, but one made defending a coaching speciality (Ford) and the other put defending and defensive figures as No 1 on his list of coaching priorities (Long).

Actually, Oldham's overall figures are hugely impressive, not only as a consistently-sound defensive side, but as a side which can play a bit of razzle-dazzle too and which knows where the try line is.

You don't score 885 points in league combat without giving the ball air and without the likes of Mo Agoro, Keiran Dixon and Cian Tyrer (alphabetical order) to score on the wings or to benefit hugely from the attacking prowess of young backs like PLT, Ben O'Keefe, Logan Astley or Jumah Sambou.

We haven't seen a lot of Jumah yet because of injury, but what we have seen of this former Saint, born in Warrington of a Tongan father and a Spanish mother, he's going to be a wow.

Technically, PLT is on long-term loan, so in terms of the Championship next year he is an unknown quantity. Many others have had big seasons too – Danny Craven and young George Hirst in the forwards immediately spring to mind – but this piece is all about the collective achievements of club and team so here goes, with special thanks to our very own historian, Mike Turner, once again.

The seven opposing nils was the best since the 1910-11 season when we had nine nils. We haven't had four in a row at home (32-0 v Midlands, 84-0 v Newcastle, 72-0 v Cornwall, 56-0 v Workington) since 1905-06.

We've never gone through a league season before with only one defeat and with the exception of 1981-2, you have to go back to 1907-08 to find only two league defeats.

Individually, Cian Tyrer topped the Betfred League One try list with 30 and he was third in the points list with 144. Jamie Ellis, with 45 league goals, was fifth in the goals list.

Ellis and Tyrer were two of three Oldham players – the other was Kieran Dixon – to finish the season with more than 100 points. Tyrer had 140, (13 matches, 29 tries, 12 goals, 140 points), Ellis had 126 (14 matches, one try, 61 goals, 126 points) and Dixon finished with 114 (7 matches, 9 tries, 39 goals, 114 points). This has happened only twice previously, in 2004 and in 1956-7.

Tyrer's 29 for Oldham equalled Paul Lord's total in 1989-90 and if you count the one as well which Tyrer scored while on loan at Workington that makes 30 – the best since Ike Southward raced in for 31 tries in season 1959-60.

Thirty players were used across the season just finished, which was made up of 20 games in Betfred League One, three in the 1895 Cup, two in the Challenge Cup (25 overall for stats purposes) and two friendlies, one at Keighley and one at home to London Broncos, neither of which is included in figures, as per official Record Keepers' guidelines.

APPEARANCES (25 possible): 24, T Chapelhow, Farnworth, Wildie; 22, Craven; 21, J Chapelhow,, J Turner; 20, Astley, Kopczak; 18, Aldridge. PLT; 17, Jack Johnson, Lawton, Taylor; 16, Josh Johnson; 15, Agoro, Hirst; 14, Ellis, Moran, Wardle; 13, C Tyrer; 12, O'Keefe; 11, Gallagher; 7. Dixon, Sidlow; 5, Morgan, Paga, M Turner; 4, Dean; 3, Roebuck; 2, Sambou.

TRIES: 29, Tyrer; 16, Agoro, J Turner; 15, PLT; 13, Astley, O'Keefe; 12, Lawton; 11, Craven; 9, Dixon; 5, Jack Johnson; 4, T Chapelhow, Kopczak, Sambou, Wildie; 3, Aldridge, Farnworth, Gallagher, Hirst, Moran, Wardle; 2, J Chapelhow, Roebuck, M Turner; 1, Ellis, Josh Johnson, Morgan, Sidlow,

GOALS: 61, Ellis; 39, Dixon; 12, Tyrer; 11, Astley; 7, Craven

DROP GOAL: 1, Craven

OVERALL: P25, W22, L3.

BETFRED LEAGUE ONE: P20, W19, L1, F885, A144, D741, Pts 38.

In the 25 games on record, we totalled 993 points and conceded only 260; we remained unbeaten at Boundary Park and the attendance of 2,681 at the Workington game when the curtain came down on the season, was not only better than most of those in the Championship, but was the Roughyeds' best since 2,806 watched our game against Doncaster at Boundary Park in 2008.

Talking of the Championship next year, that will be the litmus test for performances, results and crowd figures. We've been there before and it's tough, really tough, but the club needs no reminding of what's at stake – and when the top brass say: "You ain't seen nothing yet" their achievements in the past 12 months tend to suggest they know what they want and they have the where-with-all to make it happen.