Oldham Rugby League Club's players made quite a splash on Tuesday night as preparations continued for Sunday's Grand Final clash with Keighley Cougars at Warrington.

 

Coach Tony Benson supervised a pool session at Oldham Sports Centre to kick-start a schedule for the next few days that will closely follow last week's build-up to the semi-final win at York.

 

Like last week, Tony B will give physiotherapist Rachael Johnson and her medical aides as long as possible to get the walking wounded in the best possible shape, and the probability is that a line-up will not be announced until Saturday at the earliest -- and, maybe, not even then.

 

Among the players under treatment, or having rehab, are Tommy Goulden, Paul Reilly, Martin Roden, Lucas Onyango, Jamie I'Anson, Phil Joseph, Marcus St Hilaire, Lee Greenwood and Craig Littler.

 

The hope is that most will be okay by weekend, and that includes players who picked up knocks or suffered recurrences of previous injuries at York as well as those who were ruled out of that match such as St Hilaire, Greenwood and Littler.

 

"At this stage nobody is ruled out, everybody is in with a chance and really there isn't much else I can say," summed up Tony B. "Anyone who is nursing an injury will be given as long as possible to stake a claim."

 

Benson and Chris Baines, who had been selected in the mythical Championship 1 2009 dream team, dashed from the swimming pool to form part of the Roughyeds contingent at The Co-operative Championships end-of-season Celebration Dinner in Manchester.

 

Chief executive Chris Hamilton was there in a dual role -- those of Oldham official and RFL president.

 

Ronnie Laughton of Barnsley, who will handle Sunday's Oldham-Keighley final, was named the Co-operative Championships referee of the year.