AN EVER increasing number of Oldham Rugby League Club fans are starting to believe that this really could be third-time lucky for the club’s promotion ambitions under Scott Naylor.
Nine League One wins in a row – the best of all 38 clubs in the entire professional arm of the sport – has given Roughyeds a four-point lead at the top of the division as clubs head towards the final month of the regular 22-match campaign.
They are playing rough, tough, red-hot rugby league and in the last few weeks, following great wins against promotion rivals York, Rochdale, North Wales and Keighley, they have become firm bookies’ favourites to finish top.
It’s in their own hands because wins in their remaining four games against Newcastle and Oxford away and Barrow and Swinton at home would get them there.
That would give them a play-off tie at fortress Whitebank, where they rarely lose, against the team finishing second for the right to win promotion as league leaders and outright champions.
If their world came crashing down and they were to lose that game they would get a chance to build it up again by going into a four-club play-off with teams finishing third, fourth and fifth. You can’t ask for more than that.
As a club that has blown six Grand Finals in the last eight years, including the last two with Naylor as boss, fans readily accept that there are good reasons why their favourites are dubbed the ‘nearly men’ by the rest of the rugby league world.
But this year, there’s a different feel to it; this year, most members of the squad are in their third season together and are older, stronger and infinitely wiser than they were in 2013 and 2014.
Naylor, too, has learned a lot since he took up his first head coach’s job at Whitebank for the start of the 2013 campaign.
He and chairman Chris Hamilton, who together have worked wonders this season behind the scenes, know that the pressure is now on the entire club to maintain their high standards on the field and to repel the constant threat from their close rivals.
Said Naylor: “Because we’ve been top of the table for the past few weeks and have won nine games in a row, the rest are going to raise their games whenever we play them.
“We’ve still four to play and they will all be gunning for us. That’s why we’ve got to be switched on all the time.
“Nobody will want to come to Whitebank in a play-off so nobody will want us to finish top. The pressure is on us and we’ve got to learn to live with it.”
The two remaining league games at Whitebank promise to be absolute crackers. Barrow, who won the corresponding fixture at their ground, are visitors on Sunday, August 23 and Swinton Lions are here on Sunday, September 6.
Added Naylor: “We had nearly 900 fans at our last home game, when we beat Keighley 38-8, and we’ll be looking to get well into four figures at the last two games.”
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