IT was unfortunate for Oldham that, on the back of Toulouse Olympique's 66-0 win at Whitehaven on Sunday, Featherstone needed to put a similar score on Matt Diskin's men to stay in close contact with the French club at the top of the Betfred Championship table.

By piling 68 unanswered points on out-classed Oldham at the Millennium Stadium on Monday night they sent this stark message to the league leaders:

"We can do anything better than you, and we are coming to get you."

Oldham may, or may not, have been aware of Rovers' well-guarded plan to go for the jugular, as their French title rivals had up in Cumbria the previous day, but if they didn't know at kick-off they soon found out.

Oldham completed their first set and Dan Abram thumped the ball downfield, whereupon the first Rovers man to get a hand on the ball, Dane Chisholm, picked up at speed deep into his own quarter, swept past two weak attempts to floor him, pinned back his ears and raced threequarters of the length of the field to score under Oldham's posts.

From Oldham's perspective, it was demoralising - a 'soft' try conceded with only a couple of minutes on the clock.

From Featherstone's angle it was an eye opener - a clear signal that their opponents were there for the taking and one that must have added to their already plentiful supply of confidence and self-belief in their ability to out-do Toulouse.

Oldham had already suffered the loss of centre Ben Heaton in the pre-match warm-up.

Stand-off Lewis Charnock, that indefatigable campaigner for rolling up sleeves and getting stuck in, was another absentee and by the time the teams lined up for kick-off there was a new half-back combination in place, Dave Hewitt and Dan Abram, and with the exception of Ryan Ince on the left wing all the outside backs were rookies.

Callum Green at full-back, John Hutchings on the right wing and Joe Hartley and Max Roberts in the centres faced a Herculean task when playing behind a set of forwards who themselves found it difficult to cope with bigger, tougher men like Craig Kopczak and James Lockwood.

Oldham's biggest forwards, Phil Joy, Danny Bridge and Liam Kirk were all sidelined through injury, while the experienced Heaton was sorely missed in the back division.

To make matters worse, young Roberts was sin-binned early on - for what, we know not - and while he was off Rovers scored two more converted tries to go from 6-0 to 18-0.

Chisholm, wing Craig Hall, loose-forward Jack Bussey and hooker Dean Parata were nominated for man of the match, but there could only be one deserving victor and that was full-back Chisholm.

He set the Rovers victory machine in motion with his length-of-the-field try in the first two minutes; he kicked 10 conversions from a dozen attempts; he laid on at least two more of his team's 12 tries and he used his searing pace from a standing start to rattle Oldham time and again.

Rovers' try scorers were Chisholm, Hall (2), Bussey (2), Day, Minns, Hardcastle, Holmes, Brown, Gale and Jones.

Oldham must not get too downhearted because Featherstone have their sights set on bigger things and if they are to prevail in their quest to reach the Holy Grail - Super League - they need to sweep all before them in a tidal wave of tries and goals.

Roughyeds have a long way to go yet before they reach that standard, as this result so clearly indicated.

ROVERS: Chisholm; Gale, Hardcastle, Minns, Hall; Holmes, Brown; Kopczak, Parata, Lockwood, Day, Moors, Bussey. Subs: Jones, Davies, Cooper, Field.

OLDHAM: Green; Hutchings, Hartley, Roberts, Ince; Abram, Hewitt; Reilly, Owen, Nelmes, Bent, Langtree, Spencer. Subs: Gregory, Pick, Fletcher, Brierley.