Reds 1 (Hemmings 13)
Oldham 0
Thanks to a 13th minute goal from Kane Hemmings, the Reds ended this one on top and earned their fourth home in a row as Oakwell is starting to become a difficult place for even the league's best teams to come.
It was a slow start at Oakwell this evening as both sides got to grips with each other in the opening minutes of the encounter. As both sets of players struggled to keep possession of the ball it did look as though it was going to be a scrappy affair.
It was the Latics who had the first real chance of the game when Jonathan Forte took advantage of a botched clearance by Jean-Yves M'Voto on eight minutes and tried a spectacular lobbed effort but he was unable to keep his effort on target.
Oldham continued the early pressure and on 12 minutes Mike Jones released a shot from around 20 yards after finding himself unmarked on the edge of the area. Thankfully for the Reds the Oldham man's effort was always skewing wide.
That was immediately countered by a great move from Barnsley that resulted in the Reds taking the lead. After Milan Lalkovic had done well down the right hand side, the attacker delivered a good cross that Kane Hemmings was able to connect with and score after beating his marker in the box.
Hemmings then almost had his second on 19 minutes when he got on the end of a long clearance from Ross Turnbull but this time the striker was unable to find the target from what proved to be a difficult position.
The Reds then settled on their lead in the following ten minutes of the half as although the visitors did spend some time on the ball, they were unable to make anything of their chances.
Very little came from the closing stages of the first period as the game reverted back to the scrappy scenes that we had seen in the lead up to Barnsley's opener.
Second Half-
It was Oldham who had the first attack of the second period and Jonathan Forte who had started to look like the Latics' danger man was the one who created it.
Finding space around the edge of the Barnsley area, Forte released a shot across goal but the angle was always against the feisty attacker.
Debutant Josh Scowen registered the Reds' first shot of the second half when he fired towards goal on 56 minutes but as so many had done before him, he too could not find the target.
Continuing to offer very little in the way of action, the game was uneventful as it reached the hour mark. That was until the referee waved away a very strong penalty appeal on 67 minutes as Milan Lalkovic appeared to be pulled back inside the Oldham area.
Seeking a second goal to give the Reds some breathing room, Danny Wilson introduced Sam Winnall with twenty minutes to play as the forward looks to complete his return from injury.
That change looked like it might have paid off on 82 minutes when Winall won a corner after going on a bending run down the far side but nothing came from the delivery as the referee blew for a foul.
Winnall's presence on the field seemed to lift the side and following his arrival the play dramatically improved.
Still sitting on a slender one goal lead, things got tense as the game entered stoppage time but the Reds were able to hold out for another well deserved win at Oakwell.
Reds: Turnbull, Nyatanga, Cranie (C), Scowen, Hourihane, Hemmings (70), M'Voto, Ramage, Pearson, Lalkovic (90), Waring (90).
Subs: Davies, Winnall (70), Jennings (90), Digby, Smith, Lita (90), Kiwomya.
Oldham: Kean, Brown (60), Elokobi, Kelly (C), Jones, Poleon (59), Philliskirk (53), Forte, Winchester, Wilson, Wilson.
Subs: Coleman, Mills (60), Dieng, Mellis (53), Wilkinson (59), Lockwood, Kusunga.
Referee: Stephen Martin
Attendance: 9135 (686 Away)
