Oxford RL’s head coach Tim Rumford says his side are more than capable of pulling off an upset when they travel to third-placed Oldham in Kingstone Press League 1 on Sunday, looking to make it three wins on the spin.

Blues made it four straight home wins, with a 38-30 victory over South Wales Scorpions, but have yet to win on the road.

The hosts, who are two points off the top, will be anxious to bounce back from last weekend’s 38-28 loss to North Wales Crusaders – their first home league defeat for more than two years.

Oxford will be looking for a repeat of their 18-6 win at Whitebank in 2013 in the sides’ first meeting.

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“Oldham is a tough challenge for us, but it’s a chance for us to benchmark ourselves and see how much progress we’ve made,” said Rumford.

“It’s come at a good time for us, we’ve got to be competitive and complete our sets at a high percentage again to give ourselves a chance of causing an upset.”

Rumford was delighted with his team’s showing against Scorpions.

He added: “It was a real tough win.

“They haven’t been too far away in most of the games and they really tested us, particularly in the middle, they never stopped.

“It was a win for character, we stuck to our plan and even going into the last 10 minutes I thought we looked real strong.

“We came up with some really tough stuff at the end to get the win.”

Scott Naylor, the Oldham coach, expects a response after the Crusaders loss.

He said: “We let ourselves down a little bit. It was the same the week before against Keighley, so that’s two poor back-to-back performances.

“It doesn’t matter who we play, we’ve got to get back to playing good rugby, doing the right things and working hard. It’s all about getting the win.”