Oldham win big again

Roughyeds secured a comfortable 58-0 win over amateur side Orrell St James to secure a home tie against Dewsbury Rams in the third round of the Challenge Cup.

For a second week running, Oldham kept their opponents scoreless with Orrell scarcely troubling Roughyeds in the final third which will have most impressed director of rugby Mike Ford.

A debut was handed to full-back Jack Walker, while there were starts for Cole Geyer, Morgan Smith, Harvey Makin, Marcus Geener and Jaron Purcell, with Ford wanting to give all players a run-out before next weekend's showdown against London.

"The last two weeks have made it really difficult to make the selection, which is great," he said.

It is a job well done in terms of keeping them to zero and I was pleased with our concentration and focus.

You want perfection all the time as a coach – you don't quite get that but we will learn.

We will just keep improving. Every week we are looking to get better."

Roughyeds crossed for eleven tries, including one from debutant Jack Walker and four from last season’s leading try-scorer Kieran Dixon, who has maintained his prolific form in 2026.

Riley Dean got the ball rolling early on, scoring after throwing an outrageous dummy to open up a gap in the Orrell line.

The scrum-half grabbed another not long after after linking up well with Geyer out of dummy-half.

Morgan Smith was rewarded with Oldham's third when he followed up on Walker's line-break to finish under the posts.

Dixon's hat-trick of tries were the result of well-worked shifts, with Walker – after Dixon's second try – ducking and diving his way past three Orrell tacklers for a try on debut.

Oldham's winger wanted a fourth, and he got it, thanks to a great Bibby reverse pass which saw Dixon dart off, in the opposite direction, for a score under the posts.

Tom Nisbet and Ben O'Keefe added their names to the scoresheet, before Harvey Makin broke through and executed a perfect backwards pass to Smith who put the icing on the cake.

Now, attention turns back to the Betfred Championship with Oldham making the trip down to the capital.

"It is a big game next week," said Ford

My mouth is watering about the London trip. They have had a lot of publicity, but we are going to go down there and put our best foot forward.

Header image by Jane Henthorn