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Oldham Roughyeds 20 Castleford Tigers 32

Carl Marsden
20/ 4/2005

WITH a High Court hearing set to decide their fate on May 11, this could yet prove to be the final home game in the Roughyeds' history.

But with chairman Chris Hamilton vowing afterwards to continue fighting the taxman's winding-up order, a similar spirit of defiance has been adopted in the dressing room.

Pre-match talk was dominated by speculation about how many points the Tigers could rack up against Oldham's porous defence but Gary Mercer's men delivered their best performance of the season.

Oldham got a dream start in the opening minute. Gareth Barber completed their first set of six with a grubber kick to the corner and Nick Johnson pounced, although Marty Turner's kick struck an upright.

Twenty minutes in, the Tigers led through tries from Brad Davis and Andy Kain, both converted by the latter.

But gutsy Oldham were in no mood to roll over and - with Mark Roberts, Dana Wilson and Carlos Mataora on top form - they hit back inside two minutes.

Wilson thundered through four would-be tacklers to cross and Turner's conversion, allied to an earlier penalty, levelled the scores.

Waine Pryce then added a controversial 25th minute try, appearing to be in touch as he scrambled in at the corner.

Although Turner reduced the arrears with a half-hour penalty, a try from Michael Shenton, goaled by Kain, gave Cas a 22-14 interval lead.

Six minutes after the restart, youngster Kain weaved over for his second try and converted it himself.

But Oldham then pressured the Tigers for most of the second half and several times were found lacking only a killer instinct that would have made for an even tighter finish.

They got some reward on 55 minutes when Gavin Dodd went in under the posts, Barber goaling.

And with the game still finely poised five minutes from time, Johnson was agonisingly unable to capitalise on Barber's kick over the top, before Cas went straight upfield to notch the gamebreaking try.

A quickfire raid saw Damien Reid send in Pryce for his second score and, although Kain missed the conversion, the 12-point deficit was too much for Oldham to retrieve.

However, if the club does survive the threat of liquidation, this performance also gave supporters hope of better times ahead on-the-field.

Oldham: Dodd, Gorey, Munro, Goddard, Johnson, Turner, Mataora, Bibey, Barber, Wilson, Haughton, Roberts, Hough. Subs (all used): Kirkland, Svabic, Hodson, Tootill.

Castleford: Platt, Pryce, Reid, Hepworth, Shenton, Kain, Davis, Watene, Henderson, B Smith, Haughie, Crouch, A Smith. Subs (all used): Robinson, James, Rowe, Huby.

Attendance: 2,054.