Really looking forward to this one. Great start by widnes but London are not up to the challenge i thought they were, as you lot found out. We've swapped Jewitt, Matt Crook and Paul Clough type SL old heads for some solid championship players and look a lot fitter. We can score tries for fun but we all know Halifax will put up a very tough challenge and i can see it being a close game

Always enjoyed Halifax away and hopefully we bring a good following. Getting the train to Manchester Oxford Rd, walking to Manchester Victoria, Bus to Rochdale and then a direct train to Halifax, the journey will hopefully be worth it. Any recommendations on pubs around the ground or where the away fans normally gather?

Still no Jack Owens and Ste Tyrer either, big loss but other lads have stepped up very well

Quote Pats plastic pitch="Pats plastic pitch"Really looking forward to this one. Great start by widnes but London are not up to the challenge i thought they were, as you lot found out. We've swapped Jewitt, Matt Crook and Paul Clough type SL old heads for some solid championship players and look a lot fitter. We can score tries for fun but we all know Halifax will put up a very tough challenge and i can see it being a close game Always enjoyed Halifax away and hopefully we bring a good following. Getting the train to Manchester Oxford Rd, walking to Manchester Victoria, Bus to Rochdale and then a direct train to Halifax, the journey will hopefully be worth it. Any recommendations on pubs around the ground or where the away fans normally gather?'" There’s a pub call the three pigeons on the way to the ground, it serves traditional ales , turn left out of the train station head towards the shay it’s roughly 1/4 to 1/2 a mile and very close to the stadium. Alternatively depending on your timescales and preference there’s the piece hall which has a variety of coffee and bars which serve alcohol, that’s straight up from the train station about 200 yards turn right , the piece hall is still within half a mile of the ground. https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attractio ... gland.html https://www.thepiecehall.co.uk/

tripadvisor.co.uk

Quote Pats plastic pitch="Pats plastic pitch"Really looking forward to this one. Great start by widnes but London are not up to the challenge i thought they were, as you lot found out. We've swapped Jewitt, Matt Crook and Paul Clough type SL old heads for some solid championship players and look a lot fitter. We can score tries for fun but we all know Halifax will put up a very tough challenge and i can see it being a close game Always enjoyed Halifax away and hopefully we bring a good following. Getting the train to Manchester Oxford Rd, walking to Manchester Victoria, Bus to Rochdale and then a direct train to Halifax, the journey will hopefully be worth it. Any recommendations on pubs around the ground or where the away fans normally gather?'" There’s a pub call the three pigeons on the way to the ground, it serves traditional ales , turn left out of the train station head towards the shay it’s roughly 1/4 to 1/2 a mile and very close to the stadium. Alternatively depending on your timescales and preference there’s the piece hall which has a variety of coffee and bars which serve alcohol, that’s straight up from the train station about 200 yards turn right , the piece hall is still within half a mile of the ground. https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attractio ... gland.html https://www.thepiecehall.co.uk/

tripadvisor.co.uk

So the squads out and it is unchanged from last week i may be in a minority on this but i was hoping to see Goulding and Hewitt from huddersfield this week. I would expect the same side as last week it does seem like wood is struggling with is bicep so we might get a change there even though he is in the squad. I will go for a fax win 23-16. And now Worthington as been ruled out for the next 4 months it seems we are getting all our injury's early doors this season.

Yeah Worthington is a huge loss especially with only 2 real centres in our squad. Grix clearly must not have wanted to bring Butler in though and that goes along with what Ive heard people say Grix thinks about him.

I think if there’s any doubt about Kyle woods injury I would leave him out and bring jouffret in , fax seem to be having some terrible luck with injuries at the moment and we don’t need anymore . I would imagine he’ll play the same players as last week then possibly bring walmsey back in for the Workington game . Barber and arundal are pretty sound defensively and dangerous close to the line . The weather forecast looks dreadful again so it’ll be a war of attrition, the gameplan has to be executed like the last 20 mins of the London game , good kicking game and keep them in their half with some kicks in behind as from what I’ve seen in the highlights of the Widnes game they have conceded a few tries like that . If we give penalties away and try n force it we will lose , Aston and Keyes are starting to click so hopefully they can cause the Widnes defence some problems.

Discipline is always key and it’s been a weakness of ours with a number of refs and Jack Smith in the past has pulled us big time.
Our fault no excuses but if we cross the line we’ll get pinged every time.
Fax be warned.

It seems we have gone from 3rd favs to this been a game that most people expect us to lose.We might get to see how much of it is Widnes been a good side compared to playing weak opposition and also how much people are not realy seeing batley as a good team and that loss as one that shouldn't have happened.

I would love to see this game on a dry pitch as I think its a totally different game, my worry today as always in conditions like this is that our forwards are not going to be big enough to wear down the opposition.

Batley are a good solid team, anyone who knows owt about RL can see that. They have beaten Fax 3 times now in the last year or so. We did beat 'em in't league over at The Mount last season so in that respect we are 2 points down already on last season. Saying that though there were reasons we lost there the other Sunday and we don't need to go over it all again, I just hope we have learnt something from that game. It's going to be a wet 'un again today and will probably be won by the team making the least mistakes. Here's hoping that's us. Up The Fax!

Obvious statement “Battle of the Packs” on a heavy pitch.
I’ll also add “Battle of the Halves” and their respective kicking games.
Who comes out on top between Keyes and Aston vs Smith and Craven will likely play a big part in the outcome.

FFS! Brewdog, shuddersfield. Elvis Juice 6.5%.

SG anyone?

Very prophetic - in the first half particularly Smith and Craven kicked us to death - kicking from both our halves woeful. Unfortunately Widnes backed that up with some very strong running from their forwards, especially Tyler Dupree.
Second half our forwards , especially Gwaze, really improved and having got level with a bit more composure we should have gone onto win.
I've always been a big supporter of Grix but I just cannot understand having a player on the bench, especially a potential game changer, that you don't use, especially on such a physically draining day.Seen a report that Wood is out for months - if true that is a disaster!