OLDHAM RLFC 24

NEWCASTLE THUNDER 38

A SENSATIONAL 75-yard solo try by big forward Tyler Dupree was the highlight of Oldham's late fightback at Bower Fold.

Trailing 38-6 after a disastrous quarter of an hour early in the second half, relegated Roughyeds then threw caution to the wind, played some fantastic football and ran in four unanswered tries by right-wing Dan Abram, Dupree, and left-centre Max Roberts (2), one of which was converted by Abram.

With one away game at Dewsbury Rams still to come, Roughyeds dropped the curtain on their home games with a rousing flourish after an awful season, even if fans had still to suffer a 17th defeat out of 20 Championship games played.

There was little between the sides in the first half. Oldham won the toss and elected to play up the slope in the first half and they must have been reasonably happy to reach the break only 12-6 down.

They opened the scoring with a Lewis Charnock try after Thunder full-back Alex Donaghy fumbled a high kick as he was tackled. Dan Abram added the goal.

It took Thunder nearly half an hour to find their feet on their first-ever visit to Bower Fold, but in the run-up to half-time they got in front with tries by half-back Joshua Woods and big forward Ukuma Ta'ai, both goaled by the impressive Woods.

The Oldham plan in electing to play uphill first half was to hold Thunder early on and to hit them hard in the second half, but Thunder's response was to come out for the second half like men inspired as tries from Connor Bailey, Keiran Gill and Isaac Nokes - all within five minutes of the restart - but Thunder 28-6 up.

They then stretched their lead to 38-6 with a couple more tries by full-back Donaghy and another Woods goal but then came the Oldham fightback.

First Abram squeezed over in the corner after superb work by Harvey Spence, Charnock, Tommy Brierley and Ryan Ince in shifting the ball from left to right.

Then came the Dupree special. Receiving deep inside Oldham's half, he found a gap, sped through it, and then pushed off several defenders with sheer brute strength before holding off full-back Donaghy and crashing over the posts.

His strength and speed proved too much for Thunder defenders as Dupree covered most of the pitch before going in.

Good work by Martyn Reilly fashioned a try by young centre Max Roberts and within minutes Roberts was over again after a break by Gareth Owen and excellent support work by Danny Bridge.