Jamie Ellis on goal trail

He won't reach it this weekend because he’s got a well-earned rest and will not make the long trip to the Memorial Ground in Penryn for today’s trip to Cornwall (1pm), but Jamie Ellis needs only six goals to reach 500, including drop goals, across his multi-club career. 

The Oldham marksman, who will be hoping to be back in the starting line-up for the big game at Keighley on Sunday week (May 26), is currently second in League One’s goals chart this season with 34 against Keighley’s Jack Miller, who is top of the tree with 46.

Over his long and illustrious career, however, Ellis’s figures are eye-catching.

He kicked 180 for Hull KR, 157 for Castleford Tigers, 50 for Huddersfield Giants and, in more recent times, 50 for Oldham, 40 for York Knights, 15 for Leigh Centurions and one apiece for St Helens and Swinton.

He is well known as a leading goalkicker and in this season’s unbeaten march to the top of League One there have been numerous times when Jamie has turned four points to six with super conversions from the touchline.

A reminder that today’s game in Penryn starts at 1pm with Keighley, our closest rivals, playing at North Wales Crusaders (2.30); Midlands Hurricanes at home to Newcastle Thunder (2pm) and Rochdale Hornets at home to Workington Town (3pm).

Our training session on Thursday took place at St Anne’s — another example of the way the club is fostering relations with our local community clubs, writes ROGER HALSTEAD.

A question about this was raised at the recent Partners Meeting when Mike Ford, the parent club’s rep, assured those present that the recent training session and Q and A at Saddleworth was merely the start and that similar training sessions or opposed sessions would take place over time at each of the local clubs.

Mike has been busy in recent days on rep work, speaking publicly about all the club is doing, first at this Partners Meeting, then when interviewed on Oldham Community Radio by Gerald Brierley, and also at the recent Players’ Association social evening at the White Hart, Lydgate when the parent club bought a table in support of the Players and their big three — Joe Warburton, Ray Hicks and John Watkins.

Those present on the Oldham RLFC table included chairman Bill Quinn, managing director Mike Ford, directors Haydn Walker and Jim Minton, former director Simon Winnard, media mogul George Riley and the club’s young commercial manager Kieran O’Reilly.

O’Reilly, only 21 when he was appointed last January, is doing a great job, says Ford, and has already proved that he can create opportunities off the field and can help to create, with others, an environment in which the club becomes great again within the Oldham community,

Addressing the 80 or so who attended the Players’ Social Evening, Ford said:

“The Players support us,. We will also support them. if we want to be great again we have all to do this together.

“Getting to Super League is our ultimate aim, but that will take care of itself if we do things right, like looking after the kids, in the meantime. It is YOUR club. We are all in this together.”

Ford revealed to Oldham Community Radio that the biggest influence on his career was undoubtedly Castleford’s Aussie boss Darryl Van de Velde, who died in Australia earlier

Said Ford:

“I was 27 by the time I went to Cas and I had already played for Wigan at Wembley alongside the great Brett Kenny, fpr Leigh (27 games) and for Oldham (115 games including a Challenge Cup semi-final and a Second Division Premiership Final at Old Trafford, but i always felt I only REALLY knew the game after I had been at Cas with Darryl as head coach/

“Up to then, I had always played off the cuff. as it were. I played what was in front of me. Darryl showed me how to take a game by the scruff of the neck, how to guide my team around the field. He taught me so much and made me realise how much I didn’t know.

Said Ford:

“I always knew I wanted to be a coach but it was Darryl who finally convinced me to go down that road.”

In Rugby League he played for Great Britain, toured Down Under, and was generally regarded as one of our best-ever half-backs. In Rugby Union, he had rs at club level at Saracens, Leeds Carnegie, Newcastle Falcons, Bath, Toulon in France, Dallas Griffins in the States and finally at Leicester Tigers. At rep levelr positions with Ireland, with the British and Irish Lions, with Germany and with Belgium.

The lad who was once a pupil at Saddleworth School and later became a Hollinwood newsagent is back home in Diggle, proving beyond question that you can take the boy out of Oldham, but you can’t take Oldham out of the boy.

He and his colleagues deserve to reach their targets, All power to their elbows.