TOILING Oldham RLFC, now in the bottom two of the Betfred Championship after their fifth league defeat in a row against Sheffield Eagles, next face two crucial games at Newcastle Thunder on Sunday and at home to Dewsbury Rams the following week.

The bottom five are Swinton Lions, who have lost each of their nine games, then Oldham, Whitehaven, Newcastle and Dewsbury in that order.

Dewsbury are the only one of the five to have won more than two, but Newcastle and Whitehaven are above Roughyeds because they have each drawn one.

Places are determined this season by win percentages, not points, yet to give an idea of how tight it is in the bottom half of the 14-club Championship, 13th-placed Oldham and seventh-placed York City Knights are separated by only four points.

Newcastle won 36-30 at bottom-club Swinton last weekend while Oldham went down 32-28 at home to eighth-placed Sheffield.

Roughyeds will be desperate to end their losing run up in the North East and they are boosted by good news on the injury front.

Big prop Phil Joy appeared to come through his first competitive game of the season with no adverse affect and the only apparent new injury involved half-back Dave Hewitt, who had to leave the field near the end with a rib injury.

While Ben Heaton (thigh) and Jack Spencer (back) will this week continue their fights for fitness, half-back James Barran and utility back Kyran Johnson are now back in full training.

Johnson hasn’t played all season and Barran has been out with groin trouble since the Betfred Challenge Cup second-round tie at Swinton at the end of March, apart from a short spell off the bench at London Broncos in late April when he suffered a recurrence.