I really hope you are right but many are starting to wonder about Karl's style and tactics. This is his second season in charge and although we are 3rd and have had some big wins we are caught short when we have played the better teams and lack that ability to break down defences especially when on their line, like last night!
My worry is that we have a coach that we all worship but who has not got the attacking style that a top team needs.

I will be happy to come back late next season and eat my words! There is just that nagging doubt and I aint alone, we want to remember Karl as a good player AND coach but this may end in tears.

To be accurate Tony apart from the freak home win against leigh we have struggled to score a lot of points against our better rivals.
It's okay scoring a bagfull against some of the lower teams but not much use when you struggle to do so against the better sides.
On creativity if it turns out as rumoured that we are going to be making changes / additions in and to the 6,7 and 9 posiitons for next year then it looks like the club and coaching staff agree that we are not quite there yet.

Supporters are mearly echoing the declared ambitions of the club and to match these ambitions there is still some work to do in these positions.

It's not about being critical or negative, more like being honest and realistic.

It will be sorted, i'm sure about that.

Here here. Top post, sums it up perfectly.

Ive watched Halifax nearly 30 years and given the talent in our team last night I must say that was one of the most inept attacking performances I have seen in all the time I have watched us.

Our pack was well on top and we do have players that can score trys but they wont score trys when they never see the ball. Dropping Tyrer and Worrincy was a horrible tactical decision by KH leaving us with 2 players out there that are anything but prolific try scorers.

The only break we made in the whole game was off a bad pass by a Leigh player. Yes our defence was fantastic but we had enough of the ball to win the game 3 times over.

I know people are saying we will see next year when we make some changes to key positions how good we are but we knew at the end of the last season that Thackery(Not sure he would have made any difference), and Handforth were not good enough. Add to that we release one of this levels best hookers and dont replace him and its easy to see where the problems lie.Penky on one leg last night looked more creative than most of our players put together.

I didnt think that Hewer had the best of games missing Penky`s blatant knock on that lead to Leighs first try. Also penalizing us for offside seemed a bit harsh seen as though he didnt pin Leigh for it all night given the fact that they were offside nearly every set of the game(One of the reasons I hate sitting side on because the offsides are so obvious). Im not even kidding about the offsides at times when we had them close to their line some of their players were as far as 5 yards in front of the ref without him apparently noticing.

Still I dont want to blame the ref because I think most teams would have beaten Leigh last night given that amount of ball but once again we came up short in a big game which has become the theme of our season. It wouldnt be as bad if we were exciting to watch but we really arnt and it has me questioning whether to bother going up to Barrow or not(Obviously will do ).

Tony you can't have it both ways. When I suggested Murells kicking wasn't as good towards the end of the York game your main comment was "did you go to the game", now you are saying that question is none of any ones business, but it is obviously you business.
I think you will find that most people who did go last night thought our side lacked creativity, even Greg Florimo (who unnecessarily questioned my attendance at the York game) felt we were lacking in the creative department.
We are all entitled to our opinion without the need for your vitriol.

You also edited my spelling of Murrell in my previous post, forget other peoples spelling and try for a little accuracy in your own posts.

p.s feel free to come back with your usual withering comments.
Nothing you can say will offend me.

Have a great day.

you can never write the season off until the fat lady sings this is the one of the most important things in sport. however if we are to basically get past the first hurdle in the playoffs we definately need much more ideas in attack or we'll come off 2nd best again. come on kh attacking play is what puts bums on seats.

The problem with the lack of creativity in our team is not just down to having players that aren't good enough, the coach has to hold his hand up as well. To score trys you have to pull players in the defensive line out of position and the best way to do this is to have lots of players in motion on the same play offerring the the halfback a number of options. I'll give a crude example, we seem for some reason to like the drop off, on it's own, as a play! A drop off on it's own for a good defensive unit is easy to defend against, there is basically only two options for the attacking team, the drop off or the halfback dummies and goes himself. Just by adding two wider runners outside the man dropping under the halfback already you have doubled your options and therefore given the defence twice as much to think about. It is possible to play quite expansive rugby under a very rigid coached structure. Take Wigan as an example they play a very structured way but are very expansive because the man with the ball has at least 3 options at anyone time often more. It is then up to the man with the ball to pick the right option. If we had three or four men giving the halfbacks lots of options on each attacking play but the halfbacks keep taking the wrong option, I could then say that halfback is poor/ can't read whats in front of him. From what I've witnessed we don't have that, much of the time we only have one or two men in motion on an attacking play which means unless you can run over the top of someone you are going to struggle against good sides. I have to put some of the blame on the coaching staff, if we can't play off the cuff rugby, then don't let us, give us some structure so that players know where they should be running, what lines they should be running and when they should be running them! Lol anyway B*llSh*t rant over with, I apologise if this made little sense to anyone!lol Come ON The Fax!

Said it before and I'll say it again, we are Batley, they used to finish 3rd/4th, beat teams below them but struggle against any teams above them or round them in the league, with the odd exception. Its no great shock that we bought their coach over and a few players so we are now the new old Batley.

We have not remotely looked like being able to win any of the games we have played against the other top 4 teams, that's whats worrying.

Its no good hammering teams every now and then to get a good points for column if we cant do naff all against the top teams.

The forwards yesterday did well, laid a platform. We simply had no idea in attack. If Worrincy was dropped then that's a bad call. Wide pitch like that, he has played well before there too on many occasions.

No doubt he will get picked sunday if its a boggy small field in Barrow, wouldn't surprise me.

We need a centre, not a journeyman one who's had 6 clubs before he's 24, a good hooker and another halfback.

Tactics by Harrison is making us look like we lack creativity. Put Calland in charge of our squad now and we would score points..

Not that i'm saying Calland is better, but on the point of creativity Harrison needs to either employ an attacking coach or implement some of his knowledge effectively or we will not improve under him.

Part Quote:
"give us some structure so that players know where they should be running, what lines they should be running and when they should be running them"

On that point Tav it was intersting to listen to a couple of observations by the commentators on Radio leighlife.

Not an exact word for word but at one point they said Halifax look out of sorts and a bit disorganised, the last couple of plays have broken down because the player passing the ball doesn't seem to know who to pass to and the players around him don't know either!!

As said before these areas must be well known now and a fix will be high on the agenda, still in the mix with plenty to play for this season but next year will be a big year to see if there is an improvement.

Thought the lads put in good effort last night, 12 v 12 suited Leigh more than us though.
Regardless of what some posters who didn't attend are saying, our play is a bit one dimensional, sometimes we batter teams into submission and score heavily, but in a game like last night we needed :-
Offloads
Decoy runners
Missed man passes
Tackle busts
Runs from dummy half
Better hands out wide i.e. Drawing men
All these areas were poor, I would imagine everyone connected knows this too.

Sides are wrapping up Murrell now, hes a marked man, Handforth and Ashall are struggling to step up and take control of games and come up with alternatives.

I cant moan too much about the playing personnel though, other sides are just more expansive than us, we are still a few creative players short of where we should be, some players are not improving/developing and some are just with us a couple of seasons past their best.

Roll on play offs, lets have it sorted, and then crack on with recruiting someone at hooker and replacing Handforth who im sure knows hes ready for retirement.

Other sides may get injuries, so all is not lost totally, but they seem to have more options and play makers than us.

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics"

John mate ........ I asked if you went to the game last Sunday because you suggested that none of Murrell's (and I wish you'd spell it right) came to nothing, but you was WRONG - one of his kicks created a try. Whereas me pointing out that Fax are the most creative team in this division is RIGHT - they've scored the most points (it's there in black and white, it's a FACT), and Fax4Life was just being darn right rude by asking me a personal question which had nothing to do with anything. So it's not a matter of me "having it both ways". I'm having it one way - which happens to be the correct way.

Give up Tony you old wind up Leading points scorers means leading point scorers, we've smashed sides to bit when were on song. Its tended to be literally that though and its more akin to effective than creative. Doing the same things over and over again, although creating more points than anyone can be termed as such, it doesn't imply new methods of attack or variation are created, it just measures more points have been created, creativity in the context of the threads argument is therefore valid as we are not creating anything new or original in our play by simply smashing the opposition behind the marker position until the opposition is flattened
I therefore call it a draw, and put the arguments down to semantics