Rams claim vital victory over promotion rivals Oldham RLFC at FLAIR Stadium.
After a fantastic victory last Friday against Rochdale Hornets, the Rams welcomed another team from across the Pennines in the form of Oldham RLFC, who so far had been the only team to have taken a point from the Rams this season after a thrilling draw in May at a packed out Vestacare Stadium.
As could be expected the first ten minutes or so were very feisty with both teams looking to put their own stamp on the game and it was the Rams who got the first score after some early pressure through Brad Graham, who pounced on Calum Turner’s brilliant grubber to bring up his eleventh try of the season.
Despite opening the scoring the game was very finely balanced in a first half where both sides were making errors and it was the visitors who scored the next try when Nicholas Rawthorne scored in the corner, finishing off a well worked move. However, when Martyn Ridyard failed with his conversion attempt from the touchline the Rams still held the lead by two points.
Then in the set immediately after the Oldham try came what would prove to be a huge turning point in the game. The visitors had broken the line just inside their own half but were denied a breakaway score with a brilliant piece of defending by Owen Restall, not only did he stop the Oldham player but also forced the knock-on handing possession back to the Rams.
This gave the Rams great field position to go back on the attack and score when Paul Sykes squeezed through the Oldham line to get his second try in as many weeks and with it break the 1000-point barrier for the Rams becoming only the second player to do so in the Summer Era of Rugby League.
That wasn’t it though for the first half and the home side extended their lead at the break when Welsh International Connor Davies smashed his way through the line to score his third of the season.
Knowing they were going to need a big swing in the second half Oldham came out firing and scored on fifty-one minutes after a deflected grubber fell in to the hands of Tommy Brierley.
The visitors continued to push and had plenty of pressure on the Rams line but couldn’t manage to break through and when the Rams finally managed to get close to the Oldham line a Paul Sykes penalty goal stretched the lead to twelve, a lead which they would see out until the end of the game.
After the game Rams Head Coach Liam Finn said, “I’m really proud of what the lads did out there tonight, obviously we knew it was going to be a tough game, Oldham are a good team and probably as good as anyone in the competition so we knew that we were going to have to be on it.
It wasn’t pretty at times, at certain points we just had to be methodical and just grind the sets out and we got through it and came away with the win.”
Our next game sees us head down to the Alexander Stadium in Birmingham to take on Midlands Hurricanes on Sunday 2nd July (15:00).
Dewsbury Rams (20): Restall, Carr, Jordan, Greensmith, Whiteley, Sykes, Turner, Beckett, Butterworth, Maher, Garside, Graham, Collinson.
Interchanges: O’Connor, R.Dixon, Morris, Davies, Walker (18th)
Tries: Graham (10’), Sykes (30’), Davies (39’)
Conversions: Sykes (3/3)
Penalty Goal: Sykes (60’)
Oldham RLFC (8): McNally, Rawsthorne, Carr, Ah Van, Brierley, Ridyard, Paga, Nelmes, Wilkinson, Wilson, Meadows, Baker, Whittel.
Interchanges: Forber, Newton, Hirst, Moran, Cameron (18th)
Tries: Rawsthorne (28’), Brierley (51’)
Conversions: Ridyard (0/2)
