'I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot... and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that's precisely why I succeed''.
Michael Jordan

"Play up! Play up! And play the game!"
Sir Henry John Newbolt - Vitaï Lampada

Now come on, get your heads up, start enjoying it and win..
Justthebasicfax Aug 09

well said mike now tell the players to prove those doubters wrong

Just realised this post has been made a sticky....i thought it had disappeared! Might be just me but i always forget to look through the sticky post list!

Well said, Mike. Alot of the negative posts on here are nevertheless understandable and are borne out of frustration ... eg last night's match it appeared Batley had an extra spring and their tries looked soft, so the fans are bound to vent their annoyance.

But in reality there's probably no other sport in which confidence bears such an impact. A workmate who supports Leeds watched last night's match and ... speaking as a level headed neutral .... acknowledged we seem to be panicing with no direction. He was of the view that had we would have won that match our season would turn around overnight. A loss is a loss no matter how close, and a win is a win. He also pointed out Ian Millward being under fire in 2004 when Saints went thru a horror patch, including being beat 70 nil at Leeds!!

I'm sure things will turn round ... I'm a great believer in swings and roundabouts and it won't be too long before we're stringing 5 wins on the trot.

5 on the trop would be nice now...wouldn't that mean we would win the GF...or get there at least!?

Very good post from Mike Riley and I hope that it puts some of the silly (in my opinion) comments that have been aimed at players, coaching staff and directors firmly to bed.

I've been reading the forum for the past few weeks and have been angered by a lot of the comments. I know that the players are working really hard to get the season back on track and i'm confident they will turn things around at Leigh.

I think we should all get behind Matt and the players as Mike says - they are a great bunch and plenty of encouragement from us fans will help them.

The club needs people like Mike Riley and I just want people to be aware that he does a tremendous amount of voluntary work along with others like Malcolm Powell, Graham Clay, Michael Steele and Ian Croad among others. It's a fairly small team of workers at the club and I feel that these people should get plenty of support from the fans for what they are doing in trying to promote the club. The last thing we want is to lose valuable people like this.

Not forgetting my mate Sarah who does everything down there. The aim of my post is to try and encourage all the fans to get behind the team and these people who are working hard for the club.

This is also the first time i've ever posted something sensible. I'm maturing with age

To Mike and all Coaching and playing staff of Halifax RLFC.

As a long standing fan, not quite of mikes 50 years, it is appreciated and acknowledge that a director of the club, finds it necessary and then takes the time to compose a message to the fans on a fans forum, I wonder how many other Directors of clubs in this sport would do this, it just shows both Mike and the club do care what the fans think, and that this forum does have an impact.

I will go on further to say that the vast majority of fans are behind the club, certainly the ones I know and sit near on match days, otherwise they would not be fans!

However to go undefeated for virtually all season other than the semi of the cup, to then lose 4 games in a row, fans are bound to speculate on what the issues could be, if we just accepted it and said nothing, the club would truly be in a state! We would not be fans if we did not do speculate! we have passion real passion, we must have to have supported the club over the last few years over some of our darkest moments!

Also whilst it was completely unnecessary, thank you for putting the record straight on some of the ludicrous accusations that a very small section of “so called fans” have been suggesting. Unfortunately the “ so called fans” will always continue to do this especially if others, become sucked in to sparing on the topics posted, I guess with the age of the tinternet, these speculations are now done in print rather than verbally in the pub, and the “so called fans“ are far far braver sat at a comp than they would be in the pub or face to face with real fans!

I myself have posted some positive feedback on a couple of these topics, but find that virtually never are these picked upon, the negative spin always continues and the positive is forgotten, that’s probably why over the last two years I have gone from being a regular poster, to at times hardly looking at the forum at all! Its easy to post rubbish – its a lot harder to compose a thoughtful and factual post, it means u have to sit down and think about what u r writing! Lol

I For one will continue to turn up and support the club through thick and thin, I will cheer when we win and I will be devastated when we lose, but Mike, Matt and all the players don’t let the minority influence the opinion u have of your fans, we love our club, with pride and passion and look forward to when the current set of Directors, Coaches and Fans seeing our club once again back in the top flight.

Come on you bluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuues…………………

Jonnie

great post there,

what he said!

Great to see a director of the rugby club slaying all the rumours, hope fax can now get back on track.I must agree with him after watching the video of the batley game we played a lot better than i thought we had when i was at the game.It was just silly mistakes that cost us godden racing out of the defensive line ,tamghart dropping the ball at a crucial time etc and larder unusually falling off tackles they all add up in the end.If we can get a good win at Leigh i,m sure it will lift us for the last game and the playoffs.

if anything Mike has just endorsed RLFANS.COM as the best RL internet forum.

Better than RL forums.uk anyday

I agree with pretty much everything Jonnie said in his post, I don't believe any of the rumours that get put on here unless they then appear in the press with some evidence to prove them. I back everyone at the club, players, coach, backroom staff and directors. In fact despite what they did in the last game, every player for me starts with a clean slate, every game, because I know that everyone has good games and bad, I know I did when I played .

The problem is, as far as I see it, that we are a very passionate bunch of fans and as such to see the boys that represent the club we love play at best for 60 mins, but usually just one half of the game for the last few matches, is hard for us to take, we feel let down.

I do feel there are coaching issues that Matt needs to deal with. We know the league couldn't live with us for the first half of the season but everyone adapts and now there is a game plan out there that will beat us, it's seeing a lot of airplay at the moment so we need to move on to plan b and it's not happening. There are players (mentioning no names) that go out week on week and are completely ineffective, and then you've got someone like Dave Wrench (who, while he will never be classed as spectacular, is as solid a player as you could wish for and rarely lets us down with his effort) being lucky to warm the bench. Playing Penky at halfback has failed, we've known for 2 seasons he can't play there and yet he still get picked there, move him back to hooker where he is effective and play Mick Govin who can play there until we can get a halfback. One thing that really p***** me off is when we are chasing the game, the amount of times that half the team is bunched up in the middle of the park instead of stringing a proper attacking line out. It costs us opportunities and while I appreciate that the boys might be tired, it just makes them look they a bunch of unorganized schoolboys who don't care about what they are doing. And for me, that makes me think they don't love my club like I do.

That said, all the rumours and nonsense on here are taken with a pinch of salt, we know there are shinola stirrers that are trying to provoke arguments and uncertainty but as we get more successful and gain bigger crowds we will get more of them and will just have to deal with it.

Finally.

GO FAX!!!!!!!!!!

Well said Mate!

Zzzzzzz let us not lose sight of the fact its a results business though.