At times, refreree Karl Kirkpatrick and players alike stretched understanding and application of the laws to their limits, leaving pretty much everyone bemused. But, prior to the game's descent into a surrealist slog, Oldham got to grips with the swirling monsoon conditions.

After five minutes came the game's first Magritte moment. Oldham's attack had come to nought; the ball kicked dead in goal. Hornets shaped for a quick restart, but Oldham's Ogden put himself in the way. Mr Kirkpatrick dispatched him to the sin bin. Assuming that they'd been awarded a penalty, Hornets' Svabic hoofed the ball into touch. However, the ball wasn't actually in play at the time of the offence, so the officials were expecting a restart with a 20 metre tap. The ruling was a touch kick out on the full and a scrum with Oldham's feed.

From the resulting possession, a huge crossfield hoist by Ashton saw the ball evade a stretched Hornets defence for Langley to score.

And so the game slipped into 'stand-by'. Both teams thundering impotently into each other, coughing lots of ball and generally running out of ideas long before any danger was apparent.

The only remaining points of any note involved an exchange of penalties which saw Oldham go in 6-2 up at the break.

The second half began with a mind-twisting decision that turned the game in Hornets favour. Oldham forward Tamghart drove the ball away under his own posts; the tackle seemed to fizzle out. Next thing, Dave McConnell had swiped the ball and was scampering under the black dot unopposed, while the remaining 25 players took positions for the play the ball.

Afterwards, Karl Kirkpatrick explained the situation: "There were two in the tackle, then one dropped off. Three or four seconds later it became one on one. I shouted 'play on'. The Rochdale player stole the ball and scored the try."

Our interpretation of the ball stealing rule is that, if two players enter the tackle and one drops away, it's still considered to be a two man tackle and the ball is not allowed to be stolen. So, unless something else happened that I missed, Hornets struck pretty lucky. But credit to Dave McConnell for playing to the ref's call - even if it was a somewhat daft one.

Kev King's conversion pushed Hornets' nose in front; and both teams resumed their agricultural thudfest. Hornets strove to move the ball around, but found the floor too many times; Oldham played some tidy approach football, but looked lost once they got within 10 metres.

The introduction of Phil Hasty after an hour had an immediate effect. Virtually his first tackle saw Oldham full back O'Connor react with a running swipe. The intervention of the touch judge saw him dismissed: more for intent than impact, I guess.

Hornets strove to create somthing out of nothing when a ball going nowhere was hacked downfield; sitting up tantalisingly in the in-goal. In the resulting meleŽ of bodies, Oldham's Gorey took a heavy knock and was stretchered from the field.

With both sides out of ideas and steam, Hornets mustered one moment of lucid football as Hasty na Svabic exchanged passes at close quarters to prise Tommy Goulden through a hole to score the killer try on 78 minutes. Kev King added the extras and that was yer lot.

This was certainly one for the purists. Two sides bogged down in the middle of a shapeless mess with quality passing and fluid play at an absolute premium. But an ugly win weighs the same as a pretty one in the record books, so we'll take the points and move on.