Some of his comments baffle me. Comments from last night include
“But I think we’re the only professional team not to have any overseas players, any loan players or any dual-reg players and I’m proud of that."
Sorry Karl but whats wrong with overseas players and loan players? Dual Regs are can understand. But why be so proud of not having a loan or Overseas player if we fail to make a semi final and in general have had a season of boring predictable rugby where we have failed in many areas?
“We like to work with our own players rather than someone elses and we haven’t been far off all year.
Sorry Karl against Featherstone, Batley, Leigh and Sheffield we have often been played off the park and they have been far more entertaining. Even Barrow hammered us at The Shay! The money we have spent should have seen us reach a final - Something Leigh, Sheffield and Featherstone achieved.
“Sheffield deserved to win; it’s probably a fair reflection of where we are this season; we finished third and we’re the third best team in the competition."
The reality is Karl that we are miles behind Sheffield and Featherstone and are getting further behind playing boring rugby hoping to batter the opponents forwards. Losing to Dewsbury and Doncaster and just a 2 point win at home to York. Sorry finishing third and having in general a poor season is not good enough.
I think Fax has to look at either replacing Karl or getting somebody in to help him. Clueless in attack. Swapping players around for no real reason and boring rugby is what we have seen for the past 2 years and next year will be the same. Personally Karl should never have been asked to come back. He is a legend of the club but that reputation is being damaged with him as coach., which is a shame. For me Karl is a very proud person but I think that pride is stopping him and us achieving success. Whats is so wrong about an overseas player or bringing in a Loan player? And I just dont see that we are moving forward and catching Sheffield and Featherstone up in the next couple of years if Karl remains as coach

We lost at Doncaster. Fev lost at York. And only won at Dewsbury in the last minute.

Fax lost five games. Fev and Sheffield lost four - are you really so far away ?

Against Sheffield and Featherstone yes in my opinion. I dont expect us to win everything but we should be challenging for trophies. This year we have not even looked like being a top team. The money and players fax have brought in we should have done better than what we have done.

Mathematically we are not miles away BUT when you look at how Fev and Sheffield play and compare to the way we play then we do look far off the pace. It's all about perceptions and we do look ploddy. One of the best games I've seen Fax play in the last decade was that NRC final last year. That's the level I would want Fax to be at. Then again, I wouldn't mind going back to the stuff we produced in 2010. It was leaky - defence wise but bloody entertaining. The silky skills shown by Blacky and Branighan is much missed.

LBC, you beat me to it, i was going to say the same thing after watching the game again this morning and listening to the comments after the match, WOW.

What is wrong with Overseas or loan players, Sheffield have planty of them and they played us off the park and play great entertaining rugby with speed and energy. Its like watching a young fresh team playing a team of old has beens, no pace from fax at all. 2nd GF in 2 years.

Fev, they are making signings from all over the place including keeping a international after the world cup, think its samoa or something. successful team over the last 3 years, league leaders 3 years on the trot and no doubt another grand final appearance.

Fax, Got rid of black and replaced with Handforth, all overseas plays gone, White, Greenwood gone, we had white, greenwood and worrincy running the ball in from all over the park and making great yards and speeding the game up, Now its boring, slow and difficult to watch if i'm honest. Halifax RLFC need to get this local players for a local club out of the freaking heads, Franchising is gone so we dont have to do this anymore, We need the best players we can afford from whereever they come from. I want to see the most successful team we can field.

My real concern now is the recruitment for next year.
From what we've heard we are replacing like for like
and not addressing the problems which are evident
to all.ie pace and flair at halfback/hooker.

Penky should never have been allowed to leave. We pay Barlow a shed load of cash and hardly play him and lose Penky to Leigh no doubt due to affordability.

Picking the same team last night as at Don Valley shows an unbelievable lack of coaching know how, narrow pitch so pick a big pack and make them go through you, fair enough but at the Shay it's a different game. Last night we had no pace at all, who in that team could have gone the length of the pitch? If Sherriffe had taken the high ball would he have made the other end of the pitch, I doubt it but Rob would have, too much focus on defending and stopping the other team rather than making them think about stopping us.
We've got a team of plodders (thanks Little Rich) without much inspiration other probably Murrell though I thought Holden gave us some zip when he came on.
The rumours we have of new players seem to be no different to this team we've got, time for a shake up.
At least give us entertainment if not trophies.

He's signed some garbage hasn't he? We need better recruitment for next year!

I am concerned about the route that has been deliberately taken as regards to the "Home Grown" players stance.

It might have a noble basis but i can see a number of problems.

The direct (some say boring) rugby that we play has been explained away as the way to play in some games to get the result.

If the result is the main thing then why would we want to impose player restrictions such as not having overseas players on our team that could be better than what we have when many of our competitors do not?

Surely it is putting us at a disadavantage, should we not use every option available to us to strengthen the team to give us the best chance of getting the result if that is the main aim.

As others have said, yes it's nice to see some local lads in the team but if they were an Esikimo or an Outer Mongolian with better ability than someone from Halifax then get him signed on, this next year or so there is too much at stake to have self imposed bans on player options.

My concern is that we used to look upwards for players. We were always first or second in line to sign players on the fringes of Super League. Now we seem to look exclusively down the table. Mennel might be a good player, but I would rather take a gamble on a young Super League player, you might just strike gold, for example Ryan Brieley at Leigh.

should be looking at players like Liam Hood rather than Paul Mennell

Agree with Norman's point, under Calland you would have had several players who, when given the ball, would have looked dangerous and threatened to make breaks and go the length of the pitch. Now, we've probably just got Fieldhouse who could do that and he was brought in by Calland?

Like I said a few weeks back, I really don't want to call for Karl's head but after reading these comments and his actions, he really doesn't look like changing.

Can't believe the comments about overseas players, if they live over why can't they play for us? He's limiting our transfer targets dramatically by taking that stance. Like others have pointed out, we couldn't half do with a Branighan and Black pairing again.

That narrow pitch thing is a myth. It's three metres narrower or, if you prefer, five feet on either wing. Yeah it makes a difference but, if you're picking a team specifically based on the pitch width, I'd suggest you're doomed to failure.

It's very difficult for clubs to sign Aussies or Kiwis these days given VISA restraints, and even more difficult to tempt them over here given that the game Down Under is cash rich at the moment. I'd say that signing a really top quality player from the Queensland Cup would be pretty impossible these days.