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• Sean Long relishing challenge of steering Oldham back towards Super League

  Former Super League star Sean Long says he has shrugged off the disappointment of his exit from Featherstone and is focused on the even more ambitious task of steering Oldham back towards rugby league’s top flight.

  One of the most decorated players of his generation, who won five league titles and five Challenge Cups with St Helens, Long finds himself plotting a route which will include stops in the likes of Cornwall and Colwyn Bay next season.

  But the 47-year-old, whose stellar on-field success was often matched by lurid tales of his exploits off it, insisted he had lost none of his enthusiasm and was determined to restore the good times to a club that had languished in the lower reaches since they last exited Super League in 1997.

  “I’ve never lost my appetite for it,” Long told the PA news agency. “I loved my time as head coach at Featherstone and when Oldham came in for me, I was over the moon. I like challenging myself and the vision for the whole club really appealed to me.”

  If leading Featherstone back into the top flight appeared a near-certainty for much of last season – until they flopped in the play-offs with Long long gone – the task of resurrecting Oldham’s fortunes is a far greater one.

  Having languished in League One for each of the last two seasons, a takeover backed by former player Mike Ford in October has dramatically restored the club’s expectations, heralding a return to Boundary Park and a clear and stated intention to return to the top level of the game.

  For Long, who recalls playing against Oldham in his early days with Wigan, the expectation will eclipse that at Rovers, whose decision to dispense with his services in March, when they led the second tier by eight points, caused surprisingly little bad feeling.

  “Anything can happen in sport – one minute you’re in a job, the next you’re not,” shrugged Long. “These things happen and I’m going to keep doing things my way.

  “This club’s been in the doldrums a bit but it’s got some big long-term ambitions. We’re not counting our chickens, because things can happen in rugby league which you aren’t prepared for and my job is to keep the standards high every week.”

  The extent of Oldham’s ambition was emphasised by the close-season signing of Joe Wardle, a 32-year-old with plenty of Super League experience who was playing an integral role in Leigh’s return to the top flight until his campaign was curtailed by injury in September.

  For Wardle it was a surprisingly easy decision to swap Super League life for the prospect of long road trips to face the likes of Midlands Hurricanes and North Wales Crusaders and he sees a comparison in the way his former club also re-invented themselves as a successful outfit.

  “I’ve been part of a rebuild club before and I’ve seen how well it can work,” said Wardle.

  “When I spoke to Mike, it just fitted the bill. Everyone asks about me moving two leagues down, but I can see the vision of this club. The plan is to get back to Super League and that made it a pretty easy decision.

  “It was hard to leave Leigh because I had some great times there, but I definitely see similarities. Leigh are the kind of club everyone should be aspiring to learn from. I’m here for the start of the journey with Oldham and hopefully it’s going to be a successful one.”

• ‘Hurt’ Mark Applegarth takes responsibility for Wakefield’s relegation

  Wakefield head coach Mark Applegarth accepted responsibility for his side’s relegation from the Betfred Super League after their dramatic 20-19 golden point defeat at Leigh.

  Applegarth said he was “hurt” by his side’s failure to extend their unlikely survival battle into the final week of the season but said they would face up to the prospect of Championship rugby next year.

  He said: “I’m hurt, it stings, and as head coach the responsibility is on my shoulders.

  “It sunk in as soon as I saw that drop goal go over. All I can do is apologise to our fans but I can tell them that we will be back.

  “I’d like to think most of the fans can’t question any of the lads’ efforts. Skill, execution and composure is probably what has let us down, but definitely not effort.”

  Wakefield’s survival bid looked bleak after Tom Briscoe opened the scoring for Leigh with just four minutes on the clock but two opportunist tries from Lee Kershaw early in the second half pulled them back on level terms.

  Gareth O’Brien’s late drop goal looked to have won it for Leigh before Luke Gale kicked Wakefield into the extra period with just 19 seconds left on the clock – only for O’Brien to convert the decisive effort of a frantic extra period.

  Applegarth was left to reflect on a season in which a stirring recovery could not hide the fact that 14 straight defeats at the start of the season proved too much to overcome.

  “Ultimately the league table doesn’t lie and we weren’t good enough,” added Applegarth.

  “We’ve got some tough decisions to make and we’ve got some improvements to make. We’ve got to be honest with each other and look at why this has happened.

  “My job is to make sure we bounce straight back up. They (Leigh) flirted with it over the last few years and they’ve nailed it, so there’s a blueprint to follow right there.

  “Mark my words, we will be back in Super League, and hopefully at the first time of asking.”

  Leigh head coach Adrian Lam admitted his side were far from their best but praised their accomplishment at sealing a top six place with one week of the regular season still to go.

  “I think we just looked a bit less tired after last week,” admitted Lam.

  “There was a lot of stop-start to the game that kept them in it, and they got two tries against the run of play from dropped balls, so I was a bit nervous towards the end.

  “But we just find a way to win this year in those situations, which has been so impressive with this bunch of boys and so many players out.

  “I think some other clubs may have rolled over tonight but they just got bigger and stronger as the game went on.

  “We’ve now got to try to build some confidence and belief off the back of that, and make sure we take it on.”

• Greg Eden and Castleford gear up for survival fight with ‘desperate’ Wakefield

  Born and raised in Castleford and experiencing the high of lifting the League Leaders’ Shield as recently as 2017, Tigers full-back Greg Eden appreciates more than most the importance of his club preserving their Betfred Super League status.

  But less than 10 miles across west Yorkshire’s rhubarb triangle, passions are running equally high as Wakefield-born Mark Applegarth plots a potential great escape for Trinity, seemingly doomed after losing their first 14 games of the campaign, at the expense of their near neighbours.

  The only certainties heading into the final three weeks of the regular season are that one of Castleford and Wakefield will be playing their rugby in the second-tier Championship next season – and that the pain of demotion will reverberate around their respective towns.

  “It’s all on these last three games,” admitted Eden, whose hat-trick of tries in Castleford’s 28-12 win at Belle Vue last month helped put his side in pole position, two points clear heading into Friday’s pair of home games, which see Wakefield face title-chasing Catalans Dragons while Cas take on Hull FC.

  “I was a Cas fan growing up and I know what it means,” added Eden. “Going into games you do carry that with you. I know what it means inside and out – Cas is a small town and everybody is talking about it, and that spurs me on personally to try to work that little bit harder.”

  The Tigers’ mini-revival under new head coach Danny Ward came to crashing end in last weekend’s 66-12 defeat at Warrington, which all but erased their slender points difference advantage as well as yielding an untimely one-match ban for half-back Jacob Miller for Friday’s clash.

  “It was a really tough one to take last week but we haven’t had time to mope about,” said Ward. “As you’d expect the mood in the dressing room was terrible, probably one of the worst I’ve been in.

  “The lads spoke well and said the right things. But they’ve probably been in intense situations many times this year and said the right things, and it’s about backing that up and walking that walk now. We can’t be talking in the sheds after games any more.”

  Trinity’s loss to Cas stalled their dramatic revival and last week’s home defeat to St Helens means Applegarth’s men remain favourites for the drop as they face a Catalans side who seemed to be headed for the League Leaders’ Shield before losing their last two games.

  For the 38-year-old Applegarth, who played four seasons for his hometown club between 2004 and 2007, there is an obvious desire to steer them to the kind of escape that will eclipse all others.

  “Ultimately if things stay the same and we don’t get another win we’re going down,” said Applegarth. “We’ve got to be the most desperate team out there on the field but we’ve got to embrace that challenge.

  “We’re under no illusions and we’re looking forward to it. We’ve got three games now where it’s do or die and we’ll be going out there to put the things we learned from the Saints and Salford games into practice. It’s about cutting out those errors and not being the first team to crack.”