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by ROGER HALSTEAD BY stretching a point and referring to Saddleworth as Oldham there will be TWO Keighley versus Oldham games at Cougar Park on Sunday, the main event starting at 3pm, to be followed at 5.30pm by Keighley Cougar Cubs v Saddleworth Rangers under-18s in the first round of the National Youth League play-off. Aiming for one of, if not the, biggest gates of the season at Cougar Park, Keighley are billing their Co-operative NL2 clash with the Roughyeds as a top-of-the-table battle, seeing that both teams have played three, won three They are among five teams currently on nine points at the top, Oldham lying third behind Doncaster and Barrow on points difference and Keighley in at fifth. To compare their records to date, the Cougars won 26-0 at Hunslet, beat Swinton 21-12 at home and then went to Blackpool and won 34-26 at the seaside. Roughyeds won 46-32 at Rochdale, beat Hunslet 40-12 at Boundary Park and then won 36-26 against York City Knights, also on home soil at Boundary Park. Neither Cougars, nor their fans, will need any reminding, of course, that Roughyeds were beaten 26-18 in the corresponding fixture last season during a run of four league defeats in five games between mid-June and mid-July which ultimately cost Steve Deakin's men any chance of finishing in the top two. Deaks will be anxious to make sure there are no slips this time and, with that in mind, he will be hoping for the backing of a large following from Oldham, which will no doubt be boosted by significant support to watch in-form Rangers under-18s go head to head with the Cougar cubs for the right to progress to the next stage of the National League play-offs. Six of the Rangers boys -- stand-off Ethan Langhorn, prop Thomas Wood, hooker Dale Lowe and back-row trio Adam Jeffreys, Scott Mansfield and David Orwell -- are already known to Oldham fans as members of the new Roughyeds' reserve team, which plays its first home league game of the season against Rochdale Hornets at Sedgley Park tomorrow (Thursday) night, kick-off 7.30pm. Their club coach Phil Costin, himself a keen Roughyeds supporter, will be hoping his six Rangers come through unscathed when they go into battle against the Hornets. The Reserves, backed by Rugby Oldham, the Supporters' Trust, have got off to a promising start, putting up an encouraging performance in defeat in their first friendly at Keighley, then winning tremendously at Featherstone in a second pre-season run-out before going down 48-6 at Leigh last Wednesday night -- a result that in no way reflected the Roughyeds' contribution to the game. With the amateur season coming to an end and the RFL's Reserves season just getting up and running this is an amazingly hectic time for young players who double up. Rangers, for example, won their last five games in the National Youth League to finish sixth and clinch the final play-off spot and three of them, against Rylands of Warrington, Elland of Halifax and local rivals Waterhead, were played respectively on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday of last week --- and just for good measure the Roughyeds reserve game at Leigh took place on the Wednesday. The feeling in the Rangers camp, however, is that it is more than coincidence that their late-season surge into the play-offs has coincided with so many members of the team coming under the influence of the Roughyeds and their reserve-team coaches John Hough and Leo Casey in recent weeks. They will be hoping some of that Roughyeds influence rubs off when they take on the Cougar Cubs on Sunday. The Cubs finished third in the National League, but with Rangers on a winning streak and full of confidence they will be fancying their chances in front of a big crowd, many of them Oldhamers who will stay behind to watch after the Keighley v Oldham NL2 game. |
