Stinking Hot
Awful Hornets swipe the game from under Oldham's noses
It's not often you get to feel sorry for Oldham. Less even that you get to feel sorry for Steve Deakin. But, on a sweltering hot afternoon at Sedgely Park, the Oldham coach saw his 12-man side cruelly relieved of a game that Hornets only had a passing aquaintance with for 78 minutes.

Hammered out of sight by every team and its dog this season, Oldham showed from the outset thhat this weekend was going to be different.

The first quarter of an hour was an uninspiring slugfest: a series of Hornets one-man hit-ups terminated by Oldham prop Corcoran's desire to decapitate someone. And when the inevitable arrived - in the shape of a Svabic try worked straight through the guts of the Hornets defence - Hornets fans shook heads and tutted in the time-honoured fashion.

With Hornets lacking any real shape, Oldham repeated the move almost immediately: Hornets reprieved as an eagle eyed touch judge spotted a forward pass.

Then Hornets were handed a golden chance to really take a grip of the game: a 25th minute kerfuffle saw Lee 'Pogo' Patterson sin-binned for his role; Oldham sub David best red-carded for a head-butt on the intervention of the touch judge.

However, on resumption of play, Hornets flailed and flapped as Oldham played a straightforward, simple go-forward game. Their reward came just past the half hour as - a man short - Oldham worked an overlap up the left flank for Williams to score.

Despite the numerical advantage, Hornets made little inroads and - having been forced to drop out four times in the first 40 - went in at the break 10-nil down.

The introduction of Phil Cantillon at half time gave Hornets a little more purpose. A lightning scoot from acting half rent the Oldham defence assunder, but came to nought as the support lacked his incision. Then a trademark lunge from close range looked to have done the trick, but after long deliberation by the officials it was deemed that he'd knocked on whilst grounding the ball.

Oldham responded by launching another expansive attack, but Gorey's huge cut-out pass on the Hornets 20 metre line was snaffled by the ever alert Chris Giles who out paced the defence in an 80 metre foot race to the posts. Kev King converted. 10-6.

A raft of pedantic penalties from Mr Taberner helped settle Oldham nerves and on the hour they succeeded in creating yet another overlap up the left, this time Gorton the grateful recipient after some tidy handling across the line. 14-6 - the game slipping away.

Hornets did rally sufficiently for Kev King to lunge in at the corner to reduce the arrears to 14-10, but almost immmediately tossed away any momentum as Oldham put on a dummy runner move that unzipped their defence for Hodson to score. Five minutes remaining: 18-10: Hornets fans resigned to ignominious defeat.

But a tiring Oldham defence came up with a handling error; Giles again pounced and scored in the corner. The conversion missed: 18-14.

As Oldham teed up the kick-off, Mr Taberner signalled four minutes to play. The short kick-off was superbly read by Mark McCully; the ball worked forward in basic fashion. On the last tackle Phil Hasty hoisted a hopeful bomb. With Hornets chasers pressing, the Oldham defence allowed the ball to bounce. In a flurry of arms and legs - that seemed to include a knock-on - the ball was hacked forward by Patterson who followed up to touch down by the posts. King converted and Hornets hit the front with 90 seconds remaining.

With Hornets in possession as the clock ticked down, Oldham's weary defence transgressed; King adding the penalty to seal - and steal - the game 18-22.

Be assured. this was a mugging. Despite their reduced number, Oldham were the most cohesive - and certainly the hungrier - of the two sides on show. Not for one of the first 78 minutes did Hornest look likely to win this game; lacking direction, organisation and - most worryingly - desire.

As Hornets fans, we can grudgingly forgive the first two: It wouldn't be the first rudderless side we've watched. But a lack of desire isn't acceptable. We saw in Oldham, how a team can overcome its technical shortfalls if it wants it more than its opposition.

Darren Abram said afterwards: "It was our worst performance of the season, but we got the win so I'm happy."

I suspect he's in a very small minority. Hornets fufillled the basic requirement of taking two points, but achieved little else. So, is it really possible to have beaten Oldham and still be pissed off?

On yesterday's evidence; yes.