Oldham Land Victory In Penultimate League Fixture

ADM Premier Division: Oldham 40-12 Eccles

Eccles were the visitors to Oldham in a basement battle.

With it being Oldham’s penultimate game of the season the weather gods smiled brightly on Manor Park. Oldham had being steadily improving in the last 3-4 weeks and a win was needed not only for the league position but also for the players' belief. 

Oldham started slowly giving Eccles possession and territory, and after around 10 minutes an additional player as Tom Hannon was sin binned for a late block from a kick.

To their credit, Oldham were resolute in defence and didn't concede during the ten minutes. When numbers returned to normal, Oldham managed to retain ball possession and territory. From a superb pass from Tom Davies, Josh Watson ran the best of lines and cut through the Eccles defence to score. Alex Jobson converted for 7-0.

Oldham were playing some of the best rugby of the season, but still continued to give penalties away for indiscipline and unfortunately berating the referee. Lewis “Steve” Townsend hit a superb 50-22 kick which led to Oldham turning a scrum over and gaining a penalty at which point Louis Fitton went quick finding Josh Watson, again who barrelled over for another try. Alex Jobson again converted, and Oldham were 14-0 up. 

Oldham switched off for the final three minutes of the first half, not covering a kick from Eccles which allowed their fullback to re-gather and score under the posts to make it 14-7 at half time. 

Oldham started the second half with Tom Davies gaining yards with some good work off the boot, and from a scrum on the Eccles 22, Ryan Pickles picked up and went blind side taking a number of defenders with him before passing a lovely inside ball to the skipper Jack Taylor, who showed some decent pace to beat the covering backs to fly over.

Alex Jobson added the extras to make it 21-7. Oldham then fell foul of indiscipline again with Fitton tapping the ball out of the Eccles scrum half’s hands and was given a 10-minute breather by the ref. However, from an Eccles scrum that followed, their backline dropped the ball on the Oldham 22 and Tom Davies kicked through and as he did, like the firing of a bullet from a gun, Alex Jobson beat all of the Eccles backline with pace to re gather the ball on the Eccles 22 to score. He added the extras to make it 28-7 to Oldham. 

Fitton returned to make Oldham a 15 again, but Eccles answered back with some decent hands to score in the corner following a catch and drive at the lineout. Some poor defensive reads allowed Eccles over, however a fail to convert made it 28-12. Oldham then took the final stranglehold on the game and added another try through Alex Kurkiewicz, before Alex Jobson added the conversion to make it 35-12, before Watson stepped over in the corner to complete his hat-trick. Jobson missed the conversion to make it 40-12