AND not bothering to get up and play the ball

General enquiry
Did Jon Wilkin previously play for St Helens???

Absolutely, Rovers (apologies, to other clubs called Rover's i'm on about HKR) have played Fax in the Shitehawk Eights and it's never been easy and we won games that we shouldn't have and the games Fax won were fully deserved.

The Championship deserves so much more support than it gets.

Pretty sure I read somewhere that Sky are going to show a load of championship games at the back end of the season? Looking forward to it

Quite agree Fax defended brilliantly but never looked like scoring, good game for the neutral supporter much better than a 50+ hammering. Saints just did a job knowing there are bigger games on the horizon.

You could clearly see that St Helen's were holding back. It could easily have been 27-2 if they'd been trying.

Fax played well for each other to the last miniute. The gap is closing between the better of the championship sides and to super league clubs. It was a one off game but you wonder should fax be full time and have some money to bring in a few as well they could have pushed they had the right game plan but saints fitness and strength got them over the post.

I don't buy they were holding back Halifax t the start were fit enough to execute the game plan towards the end it was just one step too far. Saints smartened up once they realised it was not going to be an easy game.

Was urging them to score a try just to make their fans days, they had a real dig and Saints certainly didn't have an easy afternoon, in fact the scoreline flattered them a little bit in the end.

I was thinking the same myself. Maybe they are a sleeping giant. Used to love my trips to thrum hall. Maybe if I came into a bit of money I would invest in Halifax. No point in St Helens as they already have the richest investors is SL with Mike Coleman, but it would be ace to give Halifax a load of money and see what they could do

Does he play in the championship? He never mentioned it.

Must be a few super league coaches feeling embarrassed given how Halifax stifled Saints. Why do teams play into their hands week in week out?

I think the 5 metre rule at the PTB was just an experiment today so its not going to be a week in week out thing. Or maybe I'm completely wrong and the Fax players are just far superior in line speed than any other super league team.

Because you’re comparing 2 very different situations.

Halifax’s biggest game of the last god knows how many years. Saints massive favourites. Weather helping close the gap between the teams.

In those situations it’s easy for the favourite to overplay, and that’s what Saints did in the first half. When they showed more patience they started breaking down Halifax’s resolute defence.

Also Halifax threw absolutely everything into defence. Their attack was entirely nullified by Saints. You’ll struggle to find a game in SL where 1 team looks so unlikely to score as Fax did today.

That’s not to denigrate Fax at all, they are worthy of high praise today. But we also shouldn’t over-estimate the effectiveness of their performance.

Yes, but with faster SL players coaches could construct game plans that could succeed rather than rolling over and playing a boring ‘formulaic’ (as the pundits rightly called) game.