Key pair ruled out for the season as Yei nears debut

Oldham will bid to clinch the League 1 title without first-choice forwards Brad Gallagher and Jay Chapelhow after the pair underwent surgery that has ended their seasons.

Gallagher suffered a broken and dislocated thumb in last weekend's win over Midlands and has already undergone surgery. While Chapelhow has also had an operation this week on a long-standing wrist injury.

"Brad dislocated his thumb and has had an operation," head coach Sean Long told Roughyeds TV.

"Jay has had an operation on his wrist that he has been carrying all year but has been playing through the pain.

"They have been immense, a big part of the team and squad that we assembled and they will be sorely missed, but we have lads who can come in and do a job."

Long is counting the cost of a flurry of injuries that saw Elijah Taylor ruled out in the warm-up on Sunday, Adam Sidlow hobble off and new signing Riley Dean leave the pitch on crutches in the opening minutes. A week earlier Oldham's other half-back Danny Craven suffered a knee injury in the detby win at Rochdale.

"Riley has been for an X-ray and there is no break which is perfect for us really. But we now have to see the damage to his ligaments," said Long.

Danny Craven is touch and go at the moment and hasn't trained since his knee injury at Rochdale. With Adam Sidlow and Elijah Taylor hopefully it is just a bit of old age and muscle spasm and fingers crossed they will get through this week.

This is why we need a deep squad, we assembled this in November and this is why. We had four injuries at the weekend so now there have been lads waiting in the wings who will get their chance."

Better news comes with the progress being made by Papua New Guinea prop McKenzie Yei who Long is keen to introduce into his matchday squad after a knee injury and has hinted is finally ready to make his Roughyeds debut.

"I'm looking forward to it, I want to play him and get him some game time, If he trains like he did last week then he will probably make the bench this week."