Did you watch the game against Fev at home in the NRC and also our league win, away at Sheffield? They were absolutely superb performances from Fax. So having seen how well they can play, I don’t see why you seem content, with other performances that seem average at best.

Of course Fax will have their off-days; all sports teams have them, however, there have been far too many, so far. In a way, you can tolerate the lacklustre performances against Skolars and South Wales as they are playing lesser opposition. Last night they played one of the ‘bigger’ teams in the league and were still unable to raise their game, does that not concern you at all?

Granted as some people have mentioned on here, the squad was completely rebuilt at the start of the season. They have been training together since December! Did they not played 3 friendlies for them to gel together, and have they not played a further 11 games since then? I hardly think that 14 games into the new regime that the ‘give them time, they are new squad’ argument is very credible. Regardless of this, the fact they have a new squad does not explain the lack of spirit that was evident in the second half of last night.

It is apparent that some people on here have not been to every game this season, it is not a case of last night being, ‘one bad day at the office’, as I listed on my original post there have been 5 or 6 other performances, that simply haven’t been good enough. That is the reason why I wrote the post in the first place.

Why do I appear critical when I post on here? Simply because I want the best for our club! We have been playing at this level for the last 9 seasons and I hate to say it, but we have stagnated! Would Fax be able to survive another decade down here in the doldrums of RL? Who knows? I think every Fax fan; regardless of how they put their point across, realises the need to progress to SL. Last night saw a televised game between two of the sides both looking to be in SL next time round, and would have been a great opportunity to stick two fingers up at the RFL and show them a great advert for semi-pro rugby, unfortunately Fax squandered that chance. I hardly think that scraping a 1 point win at home against Keighley bodes well for the future! Do you?

Well said

Agreed. I guess because I havent been to many games lately it is hard to judge a performance on its own

I was disappointed how we lost more than anything and how some players just allowed to let their heads drop. The lazy half hearted tackling by some was for me not on.
I am yet to be impressed by our halfbacks. Thackray drifts in and out of games and seems to be more an opportunist rather than a creator for others. Handforth has a good kicking game but seems to not have a good creative game where he puts people through and comes across as a bit soft. I feel we lacked creativity and too much one man stuff. And that seemed to be the case against keighley. Plenty of good pressure with not enough creativity for points.

I said this at the start of the season regards your halves.
I have never really rated Handforth and for me was far too inconsistent during his time at Fev, tho to be fair, the Batley fans I have spoken with suggests they watched a very different Handforth to what we did.
ging dong described Thackery as a 'one trick pony', a description that has been repeated so many times by observers including fax fans since then. Remove the 'show n go' from his game and there's little else.
When fax failed to improve on their lead at the half hour mark, Leigh got a break - went down field and fax looked like rabbits caught in the headlights.
Thackeray went AWOL and Handforth went from controling the game to completely bizarre rugby.
It's not the end of the world and I know Karl has a lot of faith in Tiger. Expect it to be adressed immediately.


ps - just re-read this. Comes across a bit "ours are better than yours, so ner ner"! Not meant to be!

Peace n love

totally disagree on Thackray.

He has pace, can pass of both hands and looks capable of unlocking defences.
The problem for me is where are is options, if he doesn't have runners off the ball other than a show and go or a neat kick what elso can he do?

The game plan last night was totally different from previous games (wearing down the A,B,C&D defenders then putting it out wide and punching holes) which I couln't understand.

I am far from panic mode but my expetations of the season has come down a peg or two, still think we will win everything tho'

We took a large number of wrong options last night, lining up one way andfor some reason going the other in to nothingness. Work on it and come back next week in the right frame of mind, we know we can go to Leigh and win IF we turn up ready, just turning up will not win games in this league.

Im sure well lose other games, but this was only one game, a bad night at the office, the better team on the night won.
This team will get better and well be there challenging for honours, lets not go overboard and over analyse a bad night too deeply.

Haven't had chance to post on this subject till now. I'm not going to read all 6 pages as I am sure everything has been said, everyone knows the problem and everyone knows the answer. All I will say is that I have never ever in all my time left a game early and surprise to say I didn't last night despite all our party going 10 mins before the end, I very near did, (that's how bad it was).but I didn't.
It was one of the most disapointing games I can remember.
I said I will not go to Leigh next Sunday as I am totally p""ssed off,

See you all at Leigh next week.
Come on, we are Halifax, when have things gone according to plan?
I promise you one thing, we will win at least one competition this year.
Keep the faith.

I'm not usually a "told you so" type, but Thackray has been stealing a living in this league for years. A good support player in the right conditions when your pack is on top, but nowhere near clever enough to give the sort of passes that can build yards and get you out of a hole.

That said, Handforth's kicking game in particular was outstanding when you forced so many repeat sets early doors, although I'm sure Harrison will have been disappointed to only score once from what must have been 7-8 consecutive sets of six.

well we were very poor but all credit to leigh.i do hope it was just one of those days when a lot of players under performed but i am worried at the lack of spark when we eventually move the ball.i rated handforth highly at batley and think he will prove to be a sound signing.am i the only person not overjoyed with reittie? yes he drives it in hard but we have other guys to do that,i want my winger to have a bit of a spark about him and get me excited when he gets the ball.he could never go the length of the field thats for sure.

Spare a thought for "Thirtysomething" They're losing heavily again tonight - St Helens this time. It's like our 2003 for them. Thank the lord I'm not going through that.

Would look at dropping handforth who was dire, i suppose i'm comparing him to branighan and holroyd who created tries for fun, but we just never looked like scoring. Bring in chandler for hesketh who it think has probably been our worst prop this year. Then look at doing something with the centres as neither really give much, paterson is better than both of them in every aspect of the game and maybe shift reittie inside and play worrincy on the wing

I would definitely want Karl to bring in Bowman next week, he may be a bit suspect in defence but you cannot doubt his attacking creativity.