BetFred League 1 – 10th June
London Skolars 14 Oldham 62
Skolars losing run continued as third placed Oldham ran in eleven tries at New River Stadium.
The visitors dominated the first quarter with Oldham always looking to move the ball quickly across the line and look for a weakness in the defence. Patrick Ah Van crossed the tryline in the second minute but the try was ruled out as he’d put a foot in touch. Three minutes later, Jordan Paga regathered his own chip kick to open the scoring.
After Martyn Ridyard was held-up over the line, Oldham swung the ball to the left for Ah Van’s first try. However, Skolars fought back with Leighton Ball taking a Jack Ryan kick to the corner to touchdown. They had another good opportunity to attack, starting a set two metres out after a late tackle as Jacob Thomas launched a high kick towards the Oldham tryline. The kick on the sixth tackle took a deflection off an Oldham player and Matt Ross raced to get a hand to the ball, Alex Deery kicking the conversion.
Aaron Small was held-up soon afterwards, but there was then a long stoppage after a collision between Leighton Ball and an Oldham player. The incident led to a penalty for Skolars and was put on report, with Ball having to be stretchered off and taken to hospital with concussion. Oldham took advantage of the break in play to regroup and focus and they were quick to take advantage of Skolars’ enforced positional changes with a long pass giving Ah Van an easy try before another passing move to the left put Kian Morgan through a gap.
Gregg McNally came into the line to score on the stroke of half-time and they continued where they’d left off with Zac Baker going over five minutes into the second half.
Donald Kudungirana made a good break for Skolars, continued by Small, but the attack was stopped by some holding down by Jordan Paga, who was duly sin-binned. With the numerical advantage, Skolars scored on the right wing though Deery couldn’t convert his own try. However, they dropped the ball from the restart and Oldham were on top thereafter. Samy Kibula crashed over under the posts before another long pass gave Ah Van an easy opportunity to complete his hat-trick. Morgan broke down the left for Matty Wilkinson to score with Luke Nelmes forcing his way over for his side’s tenth try on a sultry afternoon in the capital.
The restart saw Skolars put in a short high kick-off and for once they were able to dominate a tackle on Ah Van. He took exception and after standing up ready to play-the-ball advanced several paces before throwing a hay-maker, leading to a fracas between the two teams. Somehow, he managed to stay on the field, to the bafflement of a large proportion of the crowd.
There was still some ill-feeling from that incident after Sean Slater weaved and dummied to score out wide on the right and it took several minutes after the final hooter before order was restored for Ah Van to take the conversion, though that was his first miss after taking over the kicking duties from Ridyard in the second half.
LONDON SKOLARS
1 Donald Kudangirana
2 Leighton Ball
3 Dan Bristow
4 Aaron Small
5 Jerome Yates
6 Jack Ryan
7 Jacob Thomas
8 Christian Gale
18 Liam O’Callaghan
15 Malakhi Lloyd-Jones
11 Luciano Bejandidze
12 Lameck Juma
13 Matt Ross
Subs (all used)
9 Alex Deery
19 Todd Peut
16 Tommy Porter
10 Sam Wellings
Tries: Ball (23), Ross (26), Deery (53)
Goals: Ryan 0/1. Deery 1/2
OLDHAM
1 Gregg McNally
5 Joe Hartley
3 Connor Carr
29 Kian Morgan
2 Patrick Ah Van
6 Martin Ridyard
18 Jordan Paga
8 Luke Nelmes
9 Matt Wilkinson
10 Deane Meadows
25 George Hirst
12 Zac Baker
13 Emmerson Whittel
Subs (all used)
14 Sean Slater
30 Samy Kibula
15 Dom Newton
32 Patrick Moran
Tries: Paga (5), Ah Van (13,34.60), Morgan (38), McNally (40), Baker (45), Kibula (56), Wilkinson (63), Nelmes (67), Slater (80)
Goals: Ridyard 5/6, Ah Van 4/5
Sin-bin: Paga (48) – holding down
Penalties: 5-6
Half-time: 10-28
Referee: Andrew Sweet
Att: 338
SCORING SEQUENCE: 0-6, 0-10, 4-10. 10-10, 10-16, 10-22, 10-28; 10-34, 14-24, 14-40, 14-36, 14-52, 14-58, 14-62
