It would be a real challenge for any coach at Fax at the moment.
Internally we are in a rebuilding phase from board room to boot room.

Externally the Championship, overall is probably the strongest it’s ever been with all the clubs wanting to achieve exactly what we are asking for when at the end there can only be one winner.

I’ll settle for the players stepping up to the mark and stop giving the opposition an helping hand by unnecessary penalties week after week.

Sadly the team that has been put together by a consistently underperforming football director (Ian Croad - albeit he isn’t actually willing to join the Board), has been limited by the size of the budget, his “loyalty” to players well past their best and his lack of skill at playing the market during the closed season.

It is relatively easy for a coach to be reasonably successful with a team made up of high quality players. However a high performance coach will get the best out of both a quality side and one of lesser merit. It is arguable that some high performance coaches are actually better at working with players below the top level.

As a consequence of the players he has, Simon, who is yet to be proved as even a moderate coach, is struggling, and I think will continue to do so.

As Fax fans we need to accept that given investment elsewhere in the league our predicament will continue unabated. In my view this season has already ended in a search for a play-off place, we may even get dragged into the edge of a relegation battle, we will need significant new resources (via DR) to become available to turn the season around.

It is a real conundrum for our BOD, who I think recognise, that either something significant changes in terms of future available funds or recent performances are the new normal.

We have to be realistic and not expect top 5. Other teams have considerably more money. I think mid table is were we are presently with this squad. I cannot see us doing any better. The recruitment has been okay. Gilly is injury prone and any Widnes fan would of told us that.
For me getting rid of Marshall was a error and offering it to a untried and untested rookie was a mistake or cheap option.
As it is without investment we will languish in this league and make up the numbers. This will put a lot of fans off going to matches including myself. That's the reality. As fans we want to see growth and progression.

if we did what Fev do and use the dual reg to an advantage no reason we can not compete. Can not see him dropping players for DR though

Grix did say he'd give our players the first opportunity-as expected they've failed as they weren't good enough last season-so we'll see.Fail to see any logic in our recruitment/resignings.we should have either released half a dozen in prep for DR or swapped 6 for others and tried to run our own club-those to me were the only 2 options.

I mentioned the Cas vs Wakefield game and Wakefield’s poor discipline and how it mirrored Fax.

This is what the report had to say in this weeks rl press.
“Chris Chester has promised his underperforming side Wakefield players they will be watching from the sidelines this weekend after insisting that some of his team let the rest down on Friday.”

“Chester pulled no punches afterwards warning his players that there will be big changes this weekend.”

“We were awful in that second half. Awful he said.”

“We’re disappointed because we’ve gone from being really disciplined from last week to being the worst disciplined in the comp.”

On that basis the time for Simon to act is long overdue as we have gone from having poor discipline for most of last year to having poor discipline so far this year with zero progress and are continually letting the club and spectators down as a result.

That is a fair summary of the situation, although I obviously only agree with one of the options. But, as usual, it's half hearted Halifax. We use DR begrudgingly and keep players who have proven theirselves not to be up to standard. On another note I wonder if we have even thought about going for Chester Butler on loan for the rest of the season. He's doing nowt at shuddersfield although the same same could be said of his last few games in a Fax shirt. Worth a shot though?

While on DR noticed Tom Holroyd helped Fev win at Bradford.Reluctantly accepting that all the best juniors in our area are no longer starting here,they're now been used against us by our rivals.....

It gets dafter by the minute!

So how about this Rhys Evans to Leeds from Bradford on a Season Loan who is now loaned back to Bradford for a month the RFL gets more like "The Mad Hatters Tea Party" every Day :

It was mentioned about being concerned about attendances and that it could be less than 1000 when we play London.

This weekend of the 11 Challenge Cup games reported upon in the press 7 of them had crowds of less than a thousand.

Eagles vs Fax had just 429 and these were both former winners of the cup.

Siddal vs Newcastle had more with 450.

London vs York had 543 with London being a Super League club just last season and York a club on the up shows the state of the game across the game and not just at Fax.

Challenge Cup in decline, yes, attendances in decline?

Blimey!

I know.
I must have read it ten times over not believing the figures and even now still hard to believe.
Unless there is a mass “let’s cheat the taxman” conspiracy going on.

It does show it’s not the whole picture to say Fax are the only ones with low crowds.

Fev had 1120.
Bradford 1458.
Leigh 1586.
Widnes 1564.
Workington 612.
Swinton 622.
Rochdale 400.
North Wales Crusaders 249.

Correct in all respects.
On discipline the press stats from the game say this on Fax.
“It was their first half performance that let them down, when they conceded a staggering ten penalties.
When they did get the ball, which was just ten occasions in the opening 40 minutes they managed to complete their set just 3 times.”

On the pack performance it says this.
“Fax to their credit defended their line superbly well but down the middle of the pitch were out muscled by an aggressive Dewsbury pack that caught Fax out.”