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'An ugly win is better than a pretty loss'

19/ 5/2008

OLDHAM coach Steve Deakin was happy enough with the three points after his side's late rally brought a 30-20 victory over Swinton Lions.

Tries in the last six minutes from Danny Halliwell and James Coyle gave the Roughyeds a 13th consecutive home victory having trailed 20-18 late on at Boundary Park.

However, if last week's Carnegie Challenge Cup win at Dewsbury Rams was champagne rugby league, Sunday's performance was more like a glass of beer left out in the sunshine.
Deakin said: "I thought we played like a registered charity.

Every time we scored it was like 'we put a pound in, you put a pound in'.

An ugly win is better than a pretty loss though.

"We were the better football team. They got a bit of a bounce of the ball but we should have been smarter about it; they played a bit low risk but their pivots played better than ours.

"I guess if Coyley (Coyle) doesn't play well for us then we’re on the back foot. He didn't play well because he was under pressure but I'm sure he's smart enough to know what he's got to do."

Any hopes of a flowing Oldham display were not helped by a stop-start game, brought about by numerous handling errors and the visitors' slow game.

Swinton delayed Oldham play-the-balls throughout the match, having Richie Hawkyard sinbinned during the first half, and incurring the wrath of the home fans for their tactics.

Deakin admitted post-match that the visitors' game plan was one his team had struggled to come to terms with.

He said: "I've said it before, we don't play a slow game well. Our best 10 minute period came when they were a bit tired and couldn't slow the game down to frustrate us.

"We executed at a speed that was different to what they did. People will ask why we play better against NL1 teams but they play a different game. The whole ethos is quicker and that suits us."