STAND BY for more signing activity by Oldham Rugby League Club before the Kingstone Press League One deadline on July 24.
Discounting loan and dual-registration players, they have only 19 currently on contract and two of those, Steven Nield and Tom Ashton, are on the long-term injury list.
They hope to extend latest recruit David Hewitt’s loan agreement with St Helens to the end of the season, but even so coach Scott Naylor feels there is a need to bring in more new blood before the signing door goes under lock and key.
He said: “It’s fair to say we are actively looking for one or two more additions to the squad before the cut-off point.
“I’ve got a small squad and if we were to get a few more injuries once the deadline has passed we would very quickly be down to the bare bones.”
Having reached the half-way point in the league campaign in second place, Roughyeds made the best possible start to part two with a 42-30 win at Gloucester which carried them back to the top thanks to Keighley’s defeat at North Wales Crusaders.
Hewitt, a 19-year-old half-back, made his debut against the All Golds and crowned it with a couple of first-half tries.
Naylor now has three half-backs for two spots – rookie Hewitt and two of his most senior players in captain Lewis Palfrey and the squad’s most experienced operator, Steve Roper.
Roper was given a rest at Gloucester to make way for the new boy and it will be interesting to see how Naylor plays the juggling game with his halves with key games coming up and every point crucial in the quest to finish as high up in the table as possible.
There is a clear north-south divide in league placings and it is reasonable to assume that Oldham’s fate will depend on how many points they can garner from games against their fellow members of the eight who form the ‘northern powerhouse’.
In the first half of the programme they had a 50 per cent success rate with wins against Rochdale and Swinton away and Newcastle at Whitebank, but defeats by North Wales at home and Barrow and Keighley away.
Five of their seven clashes with northern rivals in the second half of the season are at Whitebank so those are clearly the key games which will determine where they finish in a hugely competitive division in which the battle for play-off spots will go down to the wire.
Teams finishing first and second play-off for the right to go up. The losers then go into a play-off with teams finishing third, fourth and fifth to determine the second promotion place.
In theory, the higher you finish the better chance you have of reaching the Holy Grail.
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