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.

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?

But the formula worked didn’t it. It beat the less formulaic approach.

The very top teams have both the formulaic grind and the ability to produce something from nowhere. Leeds and Saints at their best over the past 15 years for instance.

But you also need to be able to “just play the game” at times. It’s often derided because it’s not great to watch. But that doesn’t it mean lacks skill or ability to do that well, consistently. It’s just a different skill, a more mental rather than physical skill and an area in which the Aussies have usually been ahead of us.

Look back at internationals for the last god knows how many years and you’ll see an England/GB team making errors forcing things and the Aussies playing the game consistently well. Then when at their best they have the finishing touches to produce quality to top it off.

The closest we’ve come to beating the Aussies in a final or truly meaningful game was the recent World Cup Final. We played the game well, matched the Aussies in that department for the first time I’ve seen. We just didn’t have that little bit of extra quality needed. But you can’t skip straight to that step of just chucking the ball around without the other element. It doesn’t work.

Credit is due to Fax for keeping the Saints under 30. But at 28-2 stifled is probably not quite the apt word.

I wonder what certain Saints fans would be saying on here had Wire or Wigan only beaten a championship side 26-2 today? Credit Halifax all you want but Saints should have done better today and you bleeding well know it.

Just got home from the game (long story, but it was a 400-mile round trip for me today). The problem for Fax was always going to be that we would struggle to get over the whitewash. We had a couple of moments when things might have finished differently, but we did need a stroke of good fortune for that to happen. Apart from that, the effort put into defending for 80 minutes by a part-time team is always going to blunt their attacking options.

Roby was a major influence on the game, scoring 1 and making 2 tries (I think?). Without him, Saints would still have won, but the score may have been a tad closer. I also don't agree with tries being awarded when the player clearly loses control of the ball but still has contact with the side of it when it hits the ground (that's how it looked to me, albeit viewed on a not-so-big screen at the other end of the pitch!).

Comments have been made about high shots from Fax as well as being constantly offside. The tackling was robust, but the Saints players were hardly gentle in their approach either! From what I could see both teams were stretching the limit of being offside vs onside. Perhaps more with Fax pinching some yardage and Saints moving before the ball was played?

Saints were obviously worthy winners, but I'm proud of every one of the 17 Fax players today.

You are correct, if we had played the Wire instead we would have played much better than that and probably would have scored our usual average of 30+ points. I will give Halifax a lot of credit by the way they fully deserved it and played the game to keep the score down, heroic effort from them.

Both Fax and Swinton are playing below their success history.

Fax have 4 Championships and 5 Challenge Cups and were part of the biggest crowd in rugby league (and all Northern sport) history in the 1954 CCfinal replay. When you think that Wire and Fax played three finals in two weeks at Wembley, Odsal and Maine Road for a combined crowd of 220,935, Fax are definitely a sleeping giant.

Swinton have 6 Championships and 3 Challenge Cups and are one of only seven clubs who’ve ever won “All Four Cups” in one season.

If the game had gone the same way the more sensible Saints fans would be saying the same thing. That Wire/Wigan were massive favourites which changes the mentality of a team, that they forced the play a bit too much in the first half but controlled pretty much the entire game and we’re up against a resolute and motivated defence. Despite this there was only ever 1 winner, Halifax never looked close to scoring.
Wire/Wigan did everything they needed to to win, the result was never in doubt and Halifax deserve massive credit for their efforts.

Those suggesting Saints were really poor both don’t understand modern rugby league and are doing Halifax a massive disservice.

Oh come on. You don’t think the sporting and social landscape has changed in 65 years?

I think Fax can be bigger than they are of course with some investment and some success but to suggest they are a “sleeping giant” based on attendances from 65 years ago is just daft.

This is not having a go at Fax, it’s just a little realism is needed.
They are also surrounded by current decent sized clubs in Huddersfield, Bradford and Keighley, which would restrict their growth to some degree and of course Halifax is still a relatively small place itself.

The daily mail has actually has a report about the game as one of its main sports stories! What’s going on?