WASN’T IT Robert Browning who wrote, from a distant shore, something about the joys of being in England now that April’s there?
He might not be so joyful if he were here in England right now, lest he should happen to have a soft spot for Oldham Rugby League Club, who are ready to rumble in their all-important Kingstone Press Championship One campaign.
In his first season with the Roughyeds, coach Scott Naylor has not been shy in publicising his avowed intent to get Oldham out of Championship One and into the sport’s second tier, the Championship – a feat that eluded his immediate predecessors Tony Benson and Steve Deakin over a six-year period.
Indications from the early-season Northern Rail Cup were promising enough, with a bad day at the office on day one (resulting in a heavy defeat at North Wales Crusaders), followed by three wins in a row against Rochdale and Gateshead at home (26-10 and 34-16 respectively) and against South Wales Scorpions down in Neath (24-12).
Final group placings were delayed because the Crusaders final game at Hemel Stags was postponed on a wintry weekend which wouldn’t sit easily with Browning’s reflections on his beloved England at this time of year.
The likelihood is, however, that Roughyeds’ interest in the Northern Rail Cup will be over for another year, thus leaving Naylor with a clean sheet of paper on which to plot and plan his route to promotion.
The push began on Good Friday with Rochdale’s visit to Whitebank – the first of 16 league games, including trips to such unlikely venues as Oxford, Hemel and Gloucester.
April, oddly enough, is scheduled for only two games in the league, but both are against newcomers – Gloucester away on Sunday, April 14 and Oxford at home on Sunday, April 28.
Pencil the Oxford game in your diary now as one not to be missed, presenting as it does the new Oldham team of the Naylor era against a side making its inaugural visit to Whitebank, but one which will know almost as much about the place as the one which calls it home from home.
Oxford are now coached by Benson, the man Naylor replaced, and his squad contains no fewer than NINE players who were at Whitebank last year, namely David Ellison, Martin Roden, John Clough, Alex Thompson, Chris Clarke, Lucas Onyango, Tommy Connick, Valu Bentley and Shaun Robinson, the former Saddleworth Rangers winger.
You can hazard a very good guess that both coaches will play down its significance as “just another game worth three league points”, but we all know different, don’t we?
Sundays April 7 and 21 cater for the Tetley’s Challenge Cup, Oldham having been drawn away to Hunslet Hawks of the Championship in round three on the first of those two cup weekends.
No doubt, though, about which will be April’s biggest and most intense game – Naylor’s Oldham versus Benson’s Oxford at Whitebank (3pm) on the final Sunday of the month.
Yes, oh to be in England . . .
