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.

The trouble with accountants is everything transfers into numbers. I wonder how many accountants are RL coaches too ?

It's easy to say this now but I remember coming on here before the first match and most of you Fax fans were saying you had the best squad in the championship You thought your pack was the best with Tonks Barlow and Ambler to name a few you were also over the moon when Worrency extended his contract saying you got the best winger in the division now some fans come out with comments like that

This season yet again has been very close for the top 5 teams and IMO there is not much in any of them it's not too long ago you thought you could win the League We have been lucky to win the league 4 times on the trot and been to the last 3 GF ( hopefully 4) but it could easily of been any of a few clubs and I include Fax in that You lost yesterday to a club that IMO lost the league in the last 40 seconds a Fev so why think you are that bad with KH. The only worry I would have as a fax fan is your crowds your still a top championship side and will be next year with or without KH Keep the faith for 2014 but don't say things like.

Year of the Fax
We got the best team
And the one that made me laugh was a tweet from. Tyrer saying Fev are panic buying before Fax game in loaning Mariarno and signing Will Sharp If only he was as good as them

I think one of the main problems is the crowds and Karl's playing style are interlinked. I will always go to Fax games but I did find myself really questioning why I bother the other week when playing Batley, clueless boring rugby, I don't blame anyone who doesn't bother anymore.

To me, it's all about building momentum season after season which Fev and Sheffield have done and Fax haven't. If we could honestly say that each season we were even slightly better than the last then we would pick up new supporters, keep the ones we have and I would be happy. When we lack any form of consistency fans start to lose interest and when they've gone it's not easy to get them back.

Add to that the lack of P&R, the variation of match days and the shortage of cash in people's pockets and attendances suffer.

Having said that, to lose 500 (over 20%) off our average in one season I struggle to explain.

Accountants have a lot in common with coaches then.



Incredible amount of game stats produced these days.

The fans we still have left walk out of the ground after the game like Zombies, probably wondering why they have wasted more money watching mind numbing rugby.

5 years from now, there will be no memories of the 2 seasons under Harrison. It's been that dull.

On Thursday, I saw one offload the whole game, and that was in a Try Scoring position straight into the hands of a Sheffield player.

With all the *incredible amount of stats* produced these days, I would expect you to be able to at least guess at answering the question. In my experience, I never met an accountant who coached RL.

Have you ever tried your hand at journalism or politics ? You've got the waffle....

An accountant is in the running for NRL coach of the year this season

Any offers on 1 ?

My major gripe about Thursdays game and probably a few others as well is this . For the first twenty minutes we ran hard , tackled well and played sensible rugby . From then on it went downhill especially in the second half . I didn't notice when it started but for at least the last 25 mins apart from virtually our last set of six , every set we had it was one man rugby . We didn't string together two passes or more. Yes Sheffield made it difficult but Fax didn't even attempt to pass the ball. I don't think the wingers received the ball going forward at all. From a fax point of view it was mind numbingly boring , pedestrian and predictable . Yes the players put great effort in but surely when chasing a game you need plan B. we just didn't have one . If they had tried to put width on the game I wouldn't have been so discouraged but you can see why people aren't turning up to watch games . Couple of my work colleagues just don't like the style of play we are producing and have stopped coming to games . All credit to Sheffield as well . The half backs controlled things with Brambani having a brilliant game especially with his kicking and at least they played some rugby. They have got real pace in their back three and it showed at times. I fear that if we don't change our style inc moving Murrell to loose forward and bringing in a new hooker and at least two half backs with pace then it's going to be same old same old..