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DEWSBURY RAMS 12 OLDHAM 58

by ROGER HALSTEAD
 
OLDHAM produced a near-perfect all-round performance at Dewsbury to beat NL1 opposition for the third time this season and to surge into the last eight of the Carnegie Challenge Cup for the first time since the "new" club was formed in 1997.
 
Did I say "beat" Dewsbury? Demolish them would be a more apt description, given that the rampant Roughyeds scored ten cracking tries -- seven of them in a brilliant second-half showing up the slope.
 
Individually, Tommy Goulden scored four tries, including a genuine hat-trick between the 29th and the 45th minutes, to walk away with the official Carnegie man-of-the-match award, selected by a Carnegie representative.
 
But this was essentially a team performance, garnished by several stunning individual offerings from the likes of Goulden, full-back Paul O'Connor, centre Mick Nanyn, halves Neil Roden and James Coyle and the irrepressible Said Tamghart.
 
Coyle and Nanyn each scored two tries, the big centre chipping in also with nine conversions out of the ten attempts to finish with a personal points haul of 26 points, his biggest yet in Oldham colours. The other two Oldham try scorers were Lucas Onyango and Richard Mervill.
 
Supplied with a lot more good possession than usual, Nanyn and Onyango caused havoc down Dewsbury's right side, that was if Goulden hadn't done the damage first before the ball hit the two outside backs. Nanyn's performance was highlighted, too, by his strong work on defence and, in particular, by the way he wrapped up Tere Glassie in the first half.
 
As we knew he would, golden-oldie Dean Lawford orchestrated Dewsbury in the first half, but the Rams were extremely limited in their attacking options, to such an extent that the only other weapon in their armoury seemed to be stand-off Walker's determination to pressurise Onyango with high kicks into a peculiar wind and a dazzling sun.
 
Once Lucas got the measure of those high balls, after a couple of early concerns, he gained in confidence and went from strength to strength to form an extremely promising-looking left-wing partnership with Nanyn.
 
Lawford's influence petered out as the Oldham forwards got a vice-like grip in midfield, so much so that the second half was virtually one-way traffic with Tamghart proving awesome both on the drive and in his tackling. Mention should also be made at this juncture of two forwards who returned impressively from injury, Simon Baldwin and Tommy Grundy.
 
Grundy's tackling was inspired, while Baldwin called on all his years of experience to return after an 11-week lay-off with a rock-steady, error-free showing that contributed wholly to the overall authority and domination of the Oldham forwards.
 
And all this was achieved despite the loss midway through the first half of skipper Robert Roberts, who limped off with a tweaked hamstring, never to return.
 
Coach Steve Deakin and the player himself both said later that the injury was not serious and that he could have gone back on, but that by the time he was ready to return to the field Roughyeds were 30-6 up, and dominant in every aspect of play. It was, therefore, decided not to take the chance of 'Two Bobs' suffering further damage.
 
Referee Gary Hewer's penalty count of 11-5 also favoured the home side, but the Rams never looked like capitalising once Roughyeds had repelled their early pressure with some magnificent defending. Four of the first five penalties went Dewsbury's way, one of them for Oldham's alleged dissent after Chris Baines had his legs lifted above the horizontal and then fell awkwardly, head first.
 
Roughyeds appealed for the penalty, but the referee ruled a knock-on by Baines and then awarded the Rams a penalty for Oldham's back-chat.
 
Significantly, this decision led directly to Dewsbury's first try. On the last tackle after the penalty, the canny Lawford shaped to kick, but instead found a little gap under the posts to give his stand-off Patrick Walker a try which Walker also converted.
 
Not all decisions went against Oldham, though, and it was good to see the touchjudges working well with the man in the middle. One of the men with the flags came to Oldham's rescue early in the second half when Rams full-back Austin Buchanan crossed Oldham's line on a rapid-fire short inside ball from Dean Lawford. The try was going to be awarded, but the touchjudge held his ground and after consulting him, referee Hewer ruled no-try, forward pass.
 
The same touchjudge had earlier come to his superior's help in the first half when he drew Hewer's attention to a Dewsbury knock-on which the referee had not spotted.
 
Oldham led 18-6 at half time and Dewsbury needed to score first on the resumption in order to drag themselves back into the game. In the event the new half was only five minutes old when Goulden went striding through for his third try on Roden's impeccably-timed pass. Nanyn's goal edged Oldham out to 24-6, whereupon the Rams beleaguered team boss Andy Kelly reshaped his side by calling four players off and throwing on four replacements.
 
We knew then that Oldham were home and dry and, sure enough, they were to score six more tries to the home side's one, this a crash-over effort by Hull-bound prop Dominic Maloney ten minutes from the end.
 
Operating cleverly and skilfully behind a dominant pack, Oldham halves Roden and Coyle were back to their best, rekindling the sort of form they displayed earlier in the season. Unusually, Coyle popped up on the left side of the field early in the game and he laid down a marker with a clever try as early as the seventh minute.
 
Rams pulled level at 6-6, but Coyle again went left to put Goulden in for the first of his four on the half hour mark. Goulden was to get another before half time after great work by Baines and then another defence-splitting pass by Roden.
 
Seven superb tries in the second half underlined Oldham's complete and utter superiority. Roden and/or Coyle had a hand in most of them and to those of us who watch the Roughyeds on a regular basis it was noticeable that there was far less emphasis on putting boot to ball and much more on putting the ball through hands.
 
Goulden (twice) and Richard Mervill strolled in on brilliantly-timed flat passes from one or the other of the half-backs, but the best tries for me involved Nanyn and Onyano. An expertly-executed short ball from Nanyn, in a three-man tackle, sent the winger on a touchlilne-hugging run to the line to record Oldham's fifth try.
 
Nanyn got the eighth, courtesy once more of his link with his winger. This time he again got Lucas up the touchline before following him on the inside to juggle with the return pass before thundering away to score behind the posts.
 
The centre was to score the ninth try,too. Another beauty. O'Connor, Roden and Goulden all handled crisply before Nanyn finished off in the corner.
 
Scorers: Dewsbury - goals, Walker (2); tries, Walker, Maloney; Oldham - goals, Nanyn (9); tries, Goulden (4), Coyle (2), Onyango, Nanyn (2), Mervill.
 
Dewsbury: Buchanan; Powell, Glynn, Bostock, Epati; Walker, Lawford; Triner, Finn, Maloney, Robinson, Glassie, Weeden. Subs: Haigh, Rourke, Wilson, Helme.
 
Oldham: O'Connor; St Hilaire, Halliwell, Nanyn, Onyango; Roden, Coyle; Boults, Joseph, Mervill, Goulden, Grundy, Roberts. Subs: Hoyle, Baines, Baldwin, Tamghart.
 
Referee: Mr G Hewer (Whitehaven); Att: 1, 103.