Oldham book playoff spot with tough London win

Oldham secured their place in the Betfred Championship playoffs with another bruising win on the road as Sean Long’s men outlasted London 20-18 at the Cherry Red Records Stadium.

Tries from new signing Ethan Ryan, Jay Chapelhow and Phoenix Laulu-Togaga’e saw Roughyeds come from behind three times to secure a vital win that confirms a playoff spot and means a top-four finish will be guaranteed with a home win over Doncaster at Boundary Park next Sunday.

“They’ve been playing really well and that was a really physical game with two teams going at each other,” head coach Sean Long told Roughyeds TV.

We showed a lot of resilience and mentally we were really strong. To come from behind shows the character of this team. We are building nicely”.

Long handed debuts to winger Ryan and forward Tom Whitehead off the bench, with Kieran Dixon 18th man.

Ryan Brierley started in his more familiar position at full-back, with Phoenix preferred to Dixon on the left wing and Morgan Smith alongside Josh Drinkwater in the halves.

The home side produced a dominant opening quarter and took a deserved lead when powerful forward Sadiq Adebeyi touched down after three consecutive sets on the Oldham line. Jack Smith converted for a 6-0 Broncos lead.

Oldham needed patience, and a bit of class, with the latter supplied by a Josh Drinkwater 40/20 that turned defence into attack. From the resulting play, a Salford link-up saw Brierley’s grubbed touched down by Ryan for a debut try. Drinkwater kicked the touchline goal to level the scores at 6-6.

Incredibly Oldham produced another 40/20 moments later, Morgan Smith this time with the kick, and Drinkwater adding two points from a penalty from the resulting set.

But from 8-6 ahead the visitors fell quickly behind as a penalty allowed the field position for prop Lewis Bienek to crash over. London led 12-8 at the break.

The second half was dominated by Oldham.

Chapelhow took a short pass from Eloi Pelissier to score under the posts as Roughyeds reclaimed a narrow lead.

Then - against the run of play - a clash of heads between Smith and Elijah Taylor opened a gap for Adebiyi to score another as London led again at 18-14. Taylor failed his Head Injury Assessment and will miss out next week.

The next score would be the winner and it came from Oldham. A London knock-on allowed an attacking scrum, with PLT finishing a sweeping move in the corner to level the scores, and Drinkwater adding another decisive touchline conversion to win the game.

“London’s defence was outstanding so we just had to spend more time earning good ball to build a bit of pressure,” said Long.

I thought our generals, our 6, 7, 9 and 1 controlled the game for us and built a lot of pressure. We said we’d have to play for the 80 minutes and we certainly did that.

Ethan Ryan was outstanding. His back-field carry and yardage got us out of a bit of strife.

The fans have been immense for us all year and now for our last home game before the playoffs we need a big crowd to get behind us.”

The only negatives for Oldham were Taylor’s head injury and another hamstring issue that forced off Matty Ashurst.

Roughyeds had to weather a storm in the capital and find the mental toughness to secure an important win.

A place in the Championship playoffs represents a huge achievement for a side crowned champions of League 1 less than 12 months ago. And Oldham are only just getting started.

Next up is Doncaster at Boundary Park next Sunday, a 2pm kick off in the final home game of the regular season.

A big crowd is expected, with hospitality almost sold out and all Salford supporters granted free entry thanks to the generosity of Oldham chairman Bill Quinn.