Looking forward to this one not sure how this game will go as widnes seem to be scoring plenty at the moment. Can see it been decided by a try either way hopefully the weather is not as bad as Sunday.

So far they have played two poor sides on plastic pitches so Im not reading too much in to how many points they are scoring. Its a game against a team that might just creep in to the playoffs this year so in that sense it really is a must win although I would be a lot more confident than I am if we knew this were going to be played on a firm pitch, as it is it might turn out to be a bit of a lottery.

Plough Lane is grass not plastic (ealing was, sorry if I'm being pendantic). Should be a cracking game for you guys next week, dont underestimate widnes, but I think you will just shade it with home advantage. As you say they have not yet been tested by a championship quality side, so you might catch them cold next week

Looking forward to this one. Last year at The Shay there was just one point in it and it could be as tight again. Let's hope for a bit of sun though.

You are right, I'd totally forgot that they had moved.

No idea which way to call this , I hope Kyle wood is ok as appeared to come off with a dead arm , hopefully just precautionary as the injuries are mounting up. I ll be honest I don’t know about the Widnes side , I believe Tyler Dupree is one of our own ( siddal ) and heard good things about him . Last year it was one each and the one at the shay was 50/50 . If we take 39 minutes of the 1st half of Batley and 20 mins in the second against London we’ll probably win but if we play like the 2nd half of Batley and the 1st hour of London it’s gonna be a long afternoon. Hopefully the weather is better has that was a hard watch at times on Sunday.

Im going for a Panthers win. Widnes have won their opening two games but their first was against London who we beat and then Workington who have shipped in 90 points in two games. We are going to be a much bigger test for them and I feel we will win. Panthers by 14

Cant call this one ,

A real tough one to call, anything from 2 to 10 points either way.
It took us a good 60 minutes to get on top of London and in that time they bombed a couple of good chances.
We can’t afford to give Widnes the same amount of possession and position and expect them to do the same because they have racked up the points including against Batley in the preseason game.
If we can cut out the errors and turn the possession and position to our favour then we can get the result.
Whoever does the above best will come out on top.
Fax, just in a nail biter.

I already don't believe we will get top three this season,lots of negatives unravelling at this early stage.Have to be thinking this is a must win already and then the reliance on the dreaded DR is effective over the course of the season.I see Matty Gee won't feature Till early April at least...so much for sitting out the friendlies as a precaution !

I expect DR to kick in after CC Round 4.
Besides Featherstone and Leigh, all semi-pro teams will take points off each other. Sunday will be a test of attitude and basic application. I actually expect Fax to come through Sunday with flying colours. Widnes need to adapt to heavy ground.
No ex players to lift their team that extra bit neither.

Fax by 18 in my opinion.

Must admit I was disappointed to hear matty gee won’t be available to late March at the earliest, it’ll be interesting to see how our forwards hold up against there’s , Tyler Dupree won young championship player of the year last year and he’s a local lad so it’ll be see how he goes , looks like rain on Saturday so might be another forward battle .

Really looking forward to this one. Great start by widnes but London are not up to the challenge i thought they were, as you lot found out. We've swapped Jewitt, Matt Crook and Paul Clough type SL old heads for some solid championship players and look a lot fitter. We can score tries for fun but we all know Halifax will put up a very tough challenge and i can see it being a close game

Always enjoyed Halifax away and hopefully we bring a good following. Getting the train to Manchester Oxford Rd, walking to Manchester Victoria, Bus to Rochdale and then a direct train to Halifax, the journey will hopefully be worth it. Any recommendations on pubs around the ground or where the away fans normally gather?

Still no Jack Owens and Ste Tyrer either, big loss but other lads have stepped up very well

Quote ="Pats plastic pitch"Really looking forward to this one. Great start by widnes but London are not up to the challenge i thought they were, as you lot found out. We've swapped Jewitt, Matt Crook and Paul Clough type SL old heads for some solid championship players and look a lot fitter. We can score tries for fun but we all know Halifax will put up a very tough challenge and i can see it being a close game Always enjoyed Halifax away and hopefully we bring a good following. Getting the train to Manchester Oxford Rd, walking to Manchester Victoria, Bus to Rochdale and then a direct train to Halifax, the journey will hopefully be worth it. Any recommendations on pubs around the ground or where the away fans normally gather?'" There’s a pub call the three pigeons on the way to the ground, it serves traditional ales , turn left out of the train station head towards the shay it’s roughly 1/4 to 1/2 a mile and very close to the stadium. Alternatively depending on your timescales and preference there’s the piece hall which has a variety of coffee and bars which serve alcohol, that’s straight up from the train station about 200 yards turn right , the piece hall is still within half a mile of the ground. https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attractio ... gland.html https://www.thepiecehall.co.uk/

Quote ="Pats plastic pitch"Really looking forward to this one. Great start by widnes but London are not up to the challenge i thought they were, as you lot found out. We've swapped Jewitt, Matt Crook and Paul Clough type SL old heads for some solid championship players and look a lot fitter. We can score tries for fun but we all know Halifax will put up a very tough challenge and i can see it being a close game Always enjoyed Halifax away and hopefully we bring a good following. Getting the train to Manchester Oxford Rd, walking to Manchester Victoria, Bus to Rochdale and then a direct train to Halifax, the journey will hopefully be worth it. Any recommendations on pubs around the ground or where the away fans normally gather?'" There’s a pub call the three pigeons on the way to the ground, it serves traditional ales , turn left out of the train station head towards the shay it’s roughly 1/4 to 1/2 a mile and very close to the stadium. Alternatively depending on your timescales and preference there’s the piece hall which has a variety of coffee and bars which serve alcohol, that’s straight up from the train station about 200 yards turn right , the piece hall is still within half a mile of the ground. https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attractio ... gland.html https://www.thepiecehall.co.uk/

So the squads out and it is unchanged from last week i may be in a minority on this but i was hoping to see Goulding and Hewitt from huddersfield this week. I would expect the same side as last week it does seem like wood is struggling with is bicep so we might get a change there even though he is in the squad. I will go for a fax win 23-16. And now Worthington as been ruled out for the next 4 months it seems we are getting all our injury's early doors this season.

Yeah Worthington is a huge loss especially with only 2 real centres in our squad. Grix clearly must not have wanted to bring Butler in though and that goes along with what Ive heard people say Grix thinks about him.

I think if there’s any doubt about Kyle woods injury I would leave him out and bring jouffret in , fax seem to be having some terrible luck with injuries at the moment and we don’t need anymore . I would imagine he’ll play the same players as last week then possibly bring walmsey back in for the Workington game . Barber and arundal are pretty sound defensively and dangerous close to the line . The weather forecast looks dreadful again so it’ll be a war of attrition, the gameplan has to be executed like the last 20 mins of the London game , good kicking game and keep them in their half with some kicks in behind as from what I’ve seen in the highlights of the Widnes game they have conceded a few tries like that . If we give penalties away and try n force it we will lose , Aston and Keyes are starting to click so hopefully they can cause the Widnes defence some problems.

Discipline is always key and it’s been a weakness of ours with a number of refs and Jack Smith in the past has pulled us big time.
Our fault no excuses but if we cross the line we’ll get pinged every time.
Fax be warned.

It seems we have gone from 3rd favs to this been a game that most people expect us to lose.We might get to see how much of it is Widnes been a good side compared to playing weak opposition and also how much people are not realy seeing batley as a good team and that loss as one that shouldn't have happened.

I would love to see this game on a dry pitch as I think its a totally different game, my worry today as always in conditions like this is that our forwards are not going to be big enough to wear down the opposition.

Batley are a good solid team, anyone who knows owt about RL can see that. They have beaten Fax 3 times now in the last year or so. We did beat 'em in't league over at The Mount last season so in that respect we are 2 points down already on last season. Saying that though there were reasons we lost there the other Sunday and we don't need to go over it all again, I just hope we have learnt something from that game. It's going to be a wet 'un again today and will probably be won by the team making the least mistakes. Here's hoping that's us. Up The Fax!

Obvious statement “Battle of the Packs” on a heavy pitch.
I’ll also add “Battle of the Halves” and their respective kicking games.
Who comes out on top between Keyes and Aston vs Smith and Craven will likely play a big part in the outcome.

FFS! Brewdog, shuddersfield. Elvis Juice 6.5%.

SG anyone?

Very prophetic - in the first half particularly Smith and Craven kicked us to death - kicking from both our halves woeful. Unfortunately Widnes backed that up with some very strong running from their forwards, especially Tyler Dupree.
Second half our forwards , especially Gwaze, really improved and having got level with a bit more composure we should have gone onto win.
I've always been a big supporter of Grix but I just cannot understand having a player on the bench, especially a potential game changer, that you don't use, especially on such a physically draining day.Seen a report that Wood is out for months - if true that is a disaster!

The kicking game was excellent last week, but went missing today. Smith and Craven were the difference today. Some real brainfarts too, when we do much wrong last week.

Still think we'll be ok, but we could soon be 1 from 5...