» December 17th 2000
» Workington Town 6 Oldham 22

Well we expected the match to be a battle between the forwards, and that was what we got.

The early exchanges saw both teams using their forwards to drive for field position and then kick.

After 8 minutes Oldham were pushing for position inside the Town half when a penalty for lying on was awarded against Kevin Hetherington. The referee then advanced the penalty 10 metres for talking back. Oldham tapped into touch and the first drive was stopped short by the Town defence. The next drive saw Neil Roden slice through the advancing defence and he scored under the posts. The successful conversion made the score 6 - 0 to the visitors.

Town then enjoyed the better of the possession but were unable to score. The attempts at a kick through were dealt with easily by the Oldham defence. Carl Sice tried to create the gaps and the forwards found the Oldham defence solid.

Oldham extended the lead just before half-time when a Town clearance kick was charged down by the Oldham defence. The ball was collected by an Oldham player clearly off-side, but the referee ignored the claims of the players and the crowd. Oldham swung the ball wide and Dean Cross scored in the corner. Pat Rich missed the conversion to make the half-time score 10 - 0 to Oldham.

The second half saw Oldham extend the lead when their full back Mark Sibson joined in the attacking line where he collected the ball and went on to score in the corner. Pat Rich added the conversion to make the score 16 - 0 to Oldham.

Roden added 2 drop goals to further extended the Oldham lead to 18 - 0.

Town then enjoyed their best spell of the game with Graeme Lewthwaite backing up the advancing attack and collected the ball and gave a display of his juggling skills as he avoided the attentions of several would be tacklers and raced past the defending full back to score under the posts. Jamie Smith added the conversion to reduce the Oldham lead to 12 points.

Town were driving forward at every attempt and Carl Sice was unlucky to knock on when diving into the in goal area from the play of the ball.

Oldham added a further try when a kick through was not dealt with by the Town defence and Roden pounced onto the loose ball. The conversion was missed leaving the final score at 22 - 6 to Oldham.