Sunday 25th Feb: CC R4: Swinton Lions V Oldham: KO 6:00pm, Heywood Road, Sale.

1 minute ago, herbie said:

A lot of daft over reaction going on after one loss.

Yes just as there may of been a bit of an over reaction to a few wins, there will likely be a swing opposite in the other direction.  Its wasn't great but we'll move on.  

I think we need better poets.

33 minutes ago, eclecticsheep said:

Rather worrying seeing so many kicks bouncing, was it the floodlights?

I know it was the same for both teams so no excuse but I thought those floodlights were useless, seemed to me to be really dark and dingy for some reason. Also the kicks bouncing and dropped balls by Oldham, to be honest from where I was sat in the main stand the moment the ball was kicked in the air by Swinton even i completely lost sight of it in the night sky and would have had no chance catching it so the Oldham lads i have a bit of sympathy with on this occasion. Maybe we should play with a bright orange rugby ball for night games 

As for the game itself, Oldham started badly and never really got going, fair play to Swinton, they looked like a decent outfit to me and credit where its due, they thoroughly deserved their victory. 

It wont do Oldham any harm to get beaten so convincingly, bit of a wake up call and a reality check that goes to show we are not the finished article yet. Its still early days in the new look Oldham in all aspects of the club from on field to off field. Bound to be some bumps in the road but I do not see tonight's loss as all doom and gloom, its obvious the new look Oldham team have the signs of being a cracking outfit with potential but a dose of reality now and then can put things into perspective and stop us all getting carried away.

The players just need to reflect on what has just happened, take the rollocking from Sean Long and then move forward for next week at York. This evenings game was one that just did not happen or gel for Oldham, cant fault the effort of the players (shout out for Jordan Turner by the way who i thought was immense) so reflect on it and move on to hopefully better days ahead.

COME ON OLDHAM!!!!!!!!!!

Could say a lot about what went wrong today but it will probably do us good in the long run ,use it to learn from and fix up , in reality we not going to win the challenge cup so a bad performance now will stop us falling in love with ourselves, hopefully see a strong reaction against York next week 

Bad day at the office. I can't see us playing so badly again if Sean has anything to do with it. Their game plan was one out rugby and then a kick to force a mistake and it worked. 

The referee did Ok but the sin binning was a little confusing, it didn't make any difference, the game was lost anyway. Just curious, did he give us any restarts during the game? The reason I ask is that he gave them plenty.

Even though we were very poor as an attacking force, you can't take anything away from the way they defended their line. Best team won and all the best to them against Sheffield.

'

Swinton d was immense today and we just couldn’t find the answers. Aldridge or paga might’ve helped.

Did wardle get injured?

Turner set the tone from the kick off. Sloppy start to say the least. Then Flat track can’t pass bully Lawton continued it. Ok when running at university players like in previous round at Barrow. First real test and bottled it. 

6 minutes ago, SUPERSTUD said:

Turner set the tone from the kick off. Sloppy start to say the least. Then Flat track can’t pass bully Lawton continued it. Ok when running at university players like in previous round at Barrow. First real test and bottled it. 

Wow! Wonder what Lawton has done to upset you.

On 25/02/2024 at 10:34, Anita Bath said:

100 years without ever playing at wembley and now you are going for it on two fronts!
 

But do you think your lads could manage two games in one day?

Problem solved!

7 hours ago, Bedford Roughyed said:

 

Can't argue with any of that. Good interview.

Everyone is entitled to a bad game

We move on

Swinton played well, defended brilliantly and fully deserved the win

It may be a blessing in disguise in the long run

55 minutes ago, chiefgeneral said:

Everyone is entitled to a bad game

We move on

Swinton played well, defended brilliantly and fully deserved the win

It may be a blessing in disguise in the long run

Agree completely with that. Lost count of how many times we got held up over the line. Great support and great atmosphere. Glad we got that performance out of out system before next week, which is a far more important game. If we can come back and win that, we are just 80 mins away from Wembley. Come on Oldham.

Good analysis from Longy. Worrying about the the two injuries especially Taylor!! Could be out a few weeks.  But then again an opportunity for the fringe players.

15 hours ago, Jackie61 said:

Totally agree and why is astley letting the ball bounce!!!! Its terrible start, cant believe its the same team 

We were at the match. No excuse but the lighting was awful. There was a low level spotlight in the far corner that was shining in the players eye line. We didn’t handle that whereas Swinton did. 

On 25/02/2024 at 21:16, jroyales said:

Just curious, did he give us any restarts during the game?

We mentioned that last night. We think it was one maybe two. I thought the ref was very inconsistent again. But this seems to be the case across the game this season. 
The sin binning was bizarre. I will look at it when I rewatch  the game later. 

1 hour ago, The Art of Hand and Foot said:

Good analysis from Longy. Worrying about the the two injuries especially Taylor!! Could be out a few weeks.  But then again an opportunity for the fringe players.

Whittel can come in at loose

I suppose they can concentrate on the 1895 cup and getting out of league 1 now. I thought is was a disjointed Oldham last night.

Honest interview with Sean Long. 

15 hours ago, ManchesterYed said:

I’ve held  back from commenting on this page for a few weeks because of the disrespect our fan base/Board as showed to other clubs and  players. We scrapped past a under strengthened Halifax and barrow side, granted the Halifax win was a great day but our budget will be bigger than there’s. We was so disrespectful to our rivals Rochdale and former players who played a second string side and was very unconvincing and when they brought on players such as Andrade wilkinson and baker off the bench we looked equaled and drew the second half 12-12. 
 

our forward pack is as good as anything outside of super league and I’ve been really unimpressed with our dummy half’s.

Yes, we will walk league one but with our budget we should only be concerned about Toulouse and Wakefield outside of super league. Are players here for the wrong reasons ? 

Yea likewise can't disagree with much of this ,other than would change the "Yes we will walk " to "We should walk league one with our budget but sport being sport there is no certainty ".  Although the bookies seem to think we are . 

Not convinced so far that our dummy half's are an upgrade , but yes I did rate our previous pairing , but the past is the past we move on ,as have they and other former players . 

As others have commented I think the result is a blessing in disguise , Swinton deserved the win and we were never going to win the Challenge Cup , getting out of League one is the priority. 
It may also be the wake up call that pushes us on in the 1895 cup to get to a final , it will still be hard to get there but at least we aren't on Wakey's side of the draw who are by far the favourites. 

WRT concerned about Toulouse and Wakey , with the IMG system in place I think there are more teams to add to the list Bradford, York , Sheffield and maybe Doncaster , probably others too , 4 cities there that regardless of our budget could score higher than us and prevent any progression to the top table in the future.

Out of curiosity anyone know what the attendance was last night? Apart from the group of Swinton fans in the corner and a smattering throughout the main stand I'd say Oldham fans were defiantly in the majority which is always good to see.

746 apparently.

746???? Blooming heck that's a bit poor.

If its a 50/50 split between the teams Oldham will be lucky to come out of the game with £500 after all expenses have been paid out 

2 hours ago, sheddingswasus said:

We mentioned that last night. We think it was one maybe two. I thought the ref was very inconsistent again. But this seems to be the case across the game this season. 
The sin binning was bizarre. I will look at it when I research the game later. 

Please, when you find the statistics, can you post them here? Interested to see the penalty count and set restarts. I think you may be surprised by what you unearth!

The glare coming off that scoreboard was ridiculous.It was like having full beam headlights in your face most of the match.In bright sun you sometimes turn your phone to full brightness but it's certainly not needed at night.It needed turning down.If I had the choice I would have stood behind the sticks with that thing behind me.You could barely read the thing. Swinton knew what they were doing with the bombs. Our lads who till now were rock solid under high balls lost it from the first kick.Never recovered.