ROUGHYEDS boss Sean Long was proud of his side after Oldham produced an upset to defeat 1895 cup holders Halifax, writes Kasey Smith.

Oldham took the lead on 12 minutes and never let Halifax back in – despite everything that was thrown at them in the dying stages.

Long was impressed with the way his men maintained their advantage against a strong championship side.

“I’m really proud of the lads because we’re a new team, which has only been together twelve weeks who have beaten a very good Halifax Panthers team,” he said.

“I just thought the effort was there today, even right at the end when they scored the try – we were scrambling around.

“Our middles set the platform for our outside backs and it was a tough game – I said it’d probably take 80 minutes to win the game, and it did.”

Long now wants his side to build on Sunday’s win, with the victory hopefully a benchmark to build on.

“We’ve set the standards now and we can’t go back,” he explained. “We were really good at the one percenters, stuff that takes no talent – we were diving on loose balls, which resulted in a try for Ben O’Keefe.

“We’re just working hard for each other and that’s the sign of a good team, and we didn’t train all last week because of the weather.

“We did weights and skills, but we had no time on the field, and we’ve only had one trial game which was on Boxing Day.

“We’re only going to get better if we keep tipping in the effort.”