I dont know about anyone else but i am worried that we will finish this season with nothing ? We just seem to make too many mistakes and give away too many cheap penalties to compete for the full 80 mins against the better teams (Cas apart).
A few on here were saying last week that we dont want people like Robbie Paul and Lee Briers cos of this reason and that reason but to me this is exactly what is required now to take us to the next level.
We were in my opinion a much better team than Widnes yesterday, but we just panicked time and time again when we should have scored, also we all talk about all the play makers in the team but to be honest i think Penky and Gleeson although very good players are very much the same when it comes to the opposition defending against them and therefore they dont really have to alter their gameplan when they are swapped about. I also think that Penky although a fantastic player, is a shocking passer of a rugby ball and lots of errors happen when he is involved in the attacking play.
I hope i am wrong and just on a downer after yesterdays game but i would be interested to know what other people think lies ahead for the rest of the season?

I am not worried. We will compete for the rest of the season and finish top, or there abouts. If we then get knocked out during the play offs then so be it. We will have still had our best season for many a year and we will be building for the future, so it is a year on year process, that said I am confident that we will do something.

I am not worried, I am proud to be a fax fan.

Thats not in question bob, i would just hate to end up with nothing with the team we have got this season !

I agree with bob on this one but the 1 thing that does slightly concern me is if we turn into a team like Arsenal at football. By which I mean we play the best style of rugby and everyone always praises us for that but we never win anything at the end.. Other than that I am happy with the way things are going at the moment.

Tend to agree with Pepsi Max. Like many I am a bit down today but nevertheless I feel doubly disappointed that we lost the match and further more lost ground in the chase for a SL place. Despite the many calls doubting the ability of the officials, how unlucky was Ben, and how lucky the opposition were I still we were outsmarted by a much better, disciplined, organised and dare I say a better coached team. They are very much in the ascendency whereas we are starting to look like a side who OK can play great attacking football but ultimately win nothing major. It just seems when the really big important matches (apart from Cas) come along we don't deliver. Can't understand why when we have real quality in the team.....

i couldnt sleep last night thinking of that dropped ball my week is ruined

we have beaten Widnes 2 from 3 this season

we have beaten Barrow 3 from 3 this season

we have beaten everyone bar Sheffield in the league.

we compete quite well i would say.

i think that it would be good to sign Robbie Paul because he can be good with playing for a year and then like i have said on another thread if he is thinking about going into coaching he wont want to go in at the deep end straight into super league.

so why not make him an ambassador for the club he can pull some weight with our franchise application which without him i feel we dont have a cat in hells chance of getting unless we move the club to Toulouse or Widnes.

he pulled a few strings and put in some good words for salfords franchise bid. he would be good just for the name people may think if Robbie Paul is there there must be something good going on, amost everyone in rugby has heard of Robbie Paul so i think this would be good for the club.

As much as I want to see the club in the top flight, if we don't make it I'll not lose any sleep if we keep serving up the drama we have so far this season! It's been excellent to watch (although I obviously wish we'd won yesterday!).

Im paranoid about us finishing the season with nothing but thats cos of years of disapointment but I know we are good enough to go on and win the Grand Final and that yesterday just came down to luck as nothing went our own way.

At the end of the day the only three games we have played and lost that mattered are cas, sheffield and widnes. All three of those teams had to put in sterling 80 minute displays to even see us off and add to that, apart from the cas game, fax were anything but decent. Especially yesterday at finishing off chances. Sheffield beat us on the pitch and we didn't deserve a thing from that game. Widnes played well, but i for one thought we made the better chances and wasted far too many of them.

Everyone should always have a bit of fear, that's what should fuel you to do things better. However i'm confident that these other teams will also have off days.

We firstly need to concentrate on finishing in the top two. After that we need to win one game. Then we need to win just one more. Two games out of a potential of three. I would back halifax out of any team in this league as favourites to do that.

I'm confident in the lads and will always think we have a chance in every game. So no i'm not worried, just mindful of not getting ahead of myself!

As a Leigh fan. I will swap you !!!










Like most seasons in the leagues second tiers, the season is all about 80 mins.

Fax for me are still the best team in the Championship by a country mile. Their unpredictability may let them down, but they play some super stuff.

Who would have thought Leigh are fighting relegation even though they have beaten Widnes twice ?

Its a top league which is getting better and better.



Widnes winning on Sunday did not surprise me. In fact, with the team they have, they should be fighting tooth and nail with you.

Anyone top 6 can win the GF IMHO!!

I am worried too, I think we need a couple of more players like Said whose quick and hard as nails. Our forwards were bossed yesterday and I also think that now other clubs know they just have to "get in our faces " and rough us up eg yesterday and Sheffield then I do believe we will lose a few more too. I think we could do with someone who scares the living daylights out of the opposition.

This is key to the whole of this thread and highlights the importance of being able to take it all to the final day of the season. Plenty have done it before us - Hull KR, Salford, Castelford etc..... They dominated the league and eventually also took the spoils. We are the best team in the league at the moment. Can we hold a steady ship in knockout footy? I'm not so sure. We've got nine matches left to send out a message to other clubs about how serious we are. We have to make them fearful again and give us more of an advantage when it comes to the knockout stuff again. We didn't play well yesterday. We didn't play too well against Barrow either. It's in our own hands to turn it around. The club currently gloating at us at the moment have lost six league matches. Let's not get into that habit and let's finish this league sitting comfortably at the top.

Totally agree, The Dors, I'm actually looking forward to matchdays nowadays whereas about 3 or 4 years ago I was on the verge of giving up and not renewing my season ticket after god knows how many years. Now bit by bit those who did give up are coming back .... we're getting better and I'm not worried in the slightest, see .....

This.

As a fan who couldnt give 2 hoots or even thinks we have a chance of making SL, all i want to see is us playing great rugby, which we are, and competing as one of the best teams in the league, which we are.

We are quickly becoming the biggest bottlers of games like Leeds used to be. Always the case, massive important game, loads of fair weather fans come down and we lose.

Even so I still think we will be in the GF.

Christ almighty Haighy, and how do you work THAT one out??!! We bottled yesterday (ONE match!!). Did we bottle Barrow? FFS ... some of you lot will never be satisfied!!

To be honest SL is not the be all and end all. Even if we win the GF or whatever next year i do not expect us to be allowed to be in SL-Bradford and Huddersfield will not want us in for a start! Also do we want to become cannon fodder or do we want to be usually near the top playing a brand of Rugby thats exciting?
The RFL/Sky will change the rules to suit as Widnes , Keighley etc know . One side of me wants us to be in SL and the other not. The Championship is a great comp with teams who have real fans not bandwaggoners. The fans from Gateshead, Barrow, Widnes, Leigh etc are similar to us. They have been through usually some tough times and have been treated like crap from the people running the game. These fans are salt of the earth who support the team no matter what not just because Wigan, Leeds etc are coming to town.

I think that's a bit harsh. We've only really had one game where we've properly bottled it and that was Sunday. Even then, it can be argued that it was a freak result given what Blacky did. Bottlers usually get tonked in these matches. As for our other play-off games in the last few years - we weren't favourites to win those. The last really important game for us was the York game (albeit it was 5 year ago) and we didn't bottle that. Let's see how this season finishes before adding such labels. If we finish top, we've got at least 2 home games to get to the final - surely we're not going to blow that. We now have to knuckle down to make sure we do finish top of the pile. There's plenty of GF winners who've fallen short in the NRC.

Haven in the play offs last year, Haven in the NRC semi final 2 years ago. In those knock-out, do or die games, we do seem to fall short since we beat Hull KR in 05.

To be honest I'm not satisfied with yesterday, no Fax fan should be really.

In all fairness to haven last season, they were actually the in form team going into the game against us in the playoffs. They'd won quite a few on the bounce.

Plus in the semi which was at whitehaven, a place we hadn't won since coming back into this league. Whitehaven finished that season level on points with us in the league. So not exactly an easy game no matter what team goes up there.

Hardly a case of bottling it. Actually the form side won both of those games.

Just as a side note, we lost the first four games to whitehaven that year, twice in the league and semi of the rail cup. Then we beat them in the playoffs. So we won that crunch game in the same season you say wwe were bottling it.

Haven Results

Challenge Cup (A) Lost 8 -36
League (A) Lost 24-40
Semi NRC (A) Lost 19-34
League (H) Lost 20-26

Playoffs (H) Won 32-24

So I think you do us a little injustice to be fair.

Forget this game but learn from the mistakes. Lets get behind the team and create a positive vibe not a negatiive one. Our aim now is to win this League and enter the GF and show we are the best team overall this year-not just for a couple of games. Lets get behind Ben Black and the boys and give them the boost and the positive thoughts that they deserve. The season is not over!!

I'm not satisfied - but at least we have had to taste some bitter disappointment before the play-offs.

I am sure that Matt will change the way we play a little bit and make the team play the percentage football at the start of the match and be more patient - the gaps come eventually and we certainly have the fire power to capitalise them.

Agreed