No place like home for 6th-placed Oldham

Oldham would have gone second in the Championship table had they won at Barrow Raiders on Sunday. In the event, they lost 20-6 but they went into the game without the likes of Josh Drinkwater, Adam Milner, Matty Ashurst, Owen Farnworth, Gil Dudson, Danny Craven, Mo Agoro, Iain Thornley, club captain Jordan Turner and others — mainly due to serious injury or, at the very least, niggles — and while that is no excuse and gives no credit to a superb performance by Barrow it at least goes part way to explaining how we came to drop precious league points at Craven Park.

Prior to that setback – and we can learn from it like we learned from the league defeat at Keighley last year — everything was going swimmingly at Boundary Park where mighty Wigan are still the only team to have beaten us this year.

Bill Quinn has expressed his frustration about what's going on, but he, Mike Ford and Co are doing a great job in transforming the club's fortunes and one hopes and expects that everything will be smoothed over; that social media criticism of the board will cease; and that crowds will get better as the weather improves and big-name Championship clubs Halifax, Featherstone Rovers and Bradford Bulls come to town.

After all, despite that disappointing league defeat up at Barrow, Oldham are still in sixth place in the Championship with three points from three games.

We are only two games from Wembley — and one of those is Barrow at home -- following our 58-6 trouncing of derby rivals Rochdale Hornets in the 1895 Cup at Boundary Park and the immediate draw for the quarter-final which took place on BBC Radio Leeds.

Oldham fans huddled around their smart phones in various BP fan zones at Boundary Park to listen to the draw which came out like this:

Featherstone Rovers v London Broncos; Bradford Bulls v Sheffield Eagles; York Knights v Widnes Vikings; OLDHAM V Barrow Raiders.

Ties will be played over the weekend of April 4, 5, and 6.

I don't know about you, but I can easily get mixed up with dates, venues and the like when we have an interest in THREE competitions, namely the Challenge Cup, the 1895 Cup and the Championship (League). I suppose that's the price of success. After all, its not every club that can boast to be unbeaten in two cup competitions and unbeaten in the league at home at this stage of the season.

Indeed, we have played SEVEN games so far at Boundary Park - a friendly against mighty Wigan, the Law Cup game against Rochdale, two in the Challenge Cup, against Rochdale Mayfield and Barrow Raiders, two league games v York and Batley Bulldogs and that most recent of games against Hornets in the 1895 Cup, and the ONLY team to beat us at BP up to now is mighty Wigan Warriors, the best team in the world if judged by their clean sweep of silverware last year, including the prize for winning the World Club Challenge.

We've beaten Hornets twice , piled up the points against Hornets (1895 Cup), Barrow Raiders (Challenge Cup) and York Knights (league), we are only two games from Wembley in the 1895 Cup, we lie sixth in the Championship (and it could easily be second) and in seven games at our new home we've won five, drawn one and chalked up a grand total of 260 points and conceded only 84.

AND THAT'S NOT EVEN TO MENTION MELROSE AND EVERYTHING ELSE THAT'S GOING ON REGARDING THE FOUNDATION, THE PATHWAY AND THE KIDS.

There have been mistakes, as Bill says, but the overall picture is one of advancement, unbelievable progress and sheer hard work on all fronts.

Two games into the Championship we were still unbeaten in competition rugby at BP and our points ratio on average for all seven home games so far was 37-12.

Fixtures for the rest of March and then for April, therefore, are as follows:

FRIDAY NIGHT (March 14, 8pm), Hull KR (a), Challenge Cup, round 4.

SUNDAY, (March 23, 3pm), London Broncos (h), Betfred Championship.

SUNDAY, (March 30, 3pm), Sheffield Eagles (a), Betfred Championship.

SUNDAY (April 6, 3pm. TO BE CONFIRMED}, Barrow Raiders (h), 1895 Cup, quarter-final.

SUNDAY (April 13, 3pm), Featherstone Rovers (h), Betfred Championship.

GOOD FRIDAY (April 18, 3pm), Widnes Vikings (a), Betfred Championship.

SUNDAY (April 27, 3pm), Bradford Bulls (h), Betfred Championship.

The next game at Boundary Park, therefore, is on Sunday week versus London Broncos. There is no place like home, or in the case of Roughyeds, no place like Boundary Park where we will be out to beat the southerners and thus preserve our unbeaten league record at our home stadium.

No matter what happens in the Challenge Cup at Super League form team Hull KR on Friday night, it will be all systems go when the bucking Broncos come to town in our next home game and we'll be all out to climb that Championship table and to further cement BP as the fortress it has been so far.