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NEIL
RODEN Standing on the threshold of the 2008 season, Neil Roden is half way through a two-year contract with the Roughyeds. He is, of course, one of the 'new' club's favourite sons, having spent four and a half seasons with the club earlier in his career and being the proud owner of the club's "top try scorer" label. A competent and highly-skilled half-back, whether at stand-off or at scrum-half, he has all the know-how required for these two specialist positions. Aged 27, he first joined Oldham from Wigan Academy in 2000 and he was to remain with the club until the end of the 2004 season when he departed for Batley Bulldogs and ultimately on to Leigh Centurions. Having been away for two seasons, 2005 and 2006, he returned to Roughyeds for the start of the 2007 season, enjoying a superb season in which he played in more games than any other player -- 34 to be precise -- and throughout the season was the main play-maker and organiser in the middle of the field. His 34 games, nearly all of them at stand-off, yielded ten tries and two drop goals for a total of 42 points. In his first stint with Roughyeds he amassed 290 points (68 tries and 18 drop goals) in 142 appearances over the four and a half seasons -- testimony, surely, to his consistency, reliability and durability. As we enter the 2008 season, therefore, Roden's overall Roughyeds statistics are as follows (taking his two stints at the club into account): 176 appearances; 78 tries; 20 drop goals; 332 points. He also has the distinction of having played in each of the club's two Grand Finals -- the defeat by Widnes in the Northern Ford Premiership Grand Final of 2001 and the loss to Featherstone Rovers in the NL1 Grand Final of 2007. Moreover, no other player in the ten-year history of Oldham RLFC (1997) Ltd has totalled more tries than Neil, whose 78 place him well clear of his nearest challenger, Mark Sibson with 61. |
