SL just gets better and better
but not from HMRC

The RFL will surely step in to save the "iconic" City of Salford stadium and the "geographically important" City Reds though wont they? Wont they?

I dont know if im missing something here but why are they all struggling (Bradford, Salford, Cas, Wakey etc)? Simple = 1.2 million to spend on everything (or something like that) so keep under the budget. What is this obsession with foreign players and staff?

Get shut of the Aussies etc and bring in the British guys and play them for a fraction of the price, that should solve it.....oh sorry....if your between the ages of 19 - 23 and involved in the British youth set up SL dont want you!

RFL = laughing stock of sport in this country!

If it wasn't for my two sons still actively playing RL & my long-standing support of Halifax RLFC i'd be gone for good out of rugby league. Maybe i'm not too far from it....

I could never turn my back on the RFL. Looking forward to their up coming home nations thingy. It's gonna be massive. You don't go training in South Africa if it int gonna be massive.


Salford are also on the cusp of a massive investment deal. Bound to be Peel Holdings. They're going to build a cable car ride between trafford centre and Sale's stadium (which Salford play in)

That is a real sad statement, but i know exactly what you mean. Shame on the clowns running the game. But....Up The Fax and keep the faith!

Colin despite all the things that are wrong Rugby League is still the greatest game on earth and supporting Halifax and local Rugby is what we look forward to week after week.
Don't give up mate.

John, it's knacked at all levels mate. Local RL is no exception, I understand that three or four players at one of our district's Conference club are signing for a Pennine division 3 club, that's technically division5 including Premier, Championship, 1,2 & 3. How right can this be ? If the names I'm hearing are correct, all of these lads regularly played Conference rugby this last season, one of them even playing representative rugby. Surely they have more ambition than division 3 ( or 5 in old money ). Look at it this way, if the club they're moving to only has minimal number of players and some of their loyal lads over the last few seasons suddenly find themselves without a game 'cos of these new signings, then they could be lost to the game. Let's take it a step further & I suggest the team gets promoted at the end of the season and the new lads go back to playing conference rugby, or even impress a pro club enough to get some reserve team rugby, what happens to the short-sighted amateur team that gets promoted but loses a couple of regular lads AND their recent signings, I'll tell you what, they'll start forfeiting games like they did at the beginning of this season 'cos they'll be unable to raise a side.
This comes on the back of the decision to make the Conference a summer comp to fall in line with the pro game, some Conference clubs actually said they felt "bullied into" the summer switch.
If this was junior RL it'd be governed by the number of signings a club can register from other clubs, it's known as "super-team-building".


Just out of interest, all of us who have any sort of affiliation to the amateur game, either RL or RU and know the lads who play at local clubs or are involved in the running of the clubs locally, how many people directly from these local clubs do you know who either sponsor at Halifax RLFC, pay at the gate, go to many matches at all following their local club, or as I suspect, just turn out for the big finals ?
I know very few who, unless they have kids playing the game, don't give their local club a second thought with regards to actually going to the matches nowadays. A long way since the days when we used to bump into lads at the sunday afternoon match & discuss the previous day's amateur fixtures.
The whole sport has been turned upside down in my opinion and has come out of it worse for wear.
Greetland All-Rounders v Selby Warriors tomorrow ? Aye if I can be ar$ed.....

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Colin
Might see you there, looks like the best local fixture, Siddal away, Park at West Bowling ,I know it's not far but I get a nose bleed every time I pass "The ground that time forgot".
So it looks like Greetland, incidentally I played for Greetland under 17's under 19's and open age, was poached by Dunc to go to St Mary's, which became Park Am's and then on to Old Brods.
Got sent off whilst playing for The Halifax BS, guess why? Duncan knows.

Take it thats Elland players going to Stainland, better them staying in league than all going to play union like they did last year. Does get a bit silly thouggh was talking to a fella from the league last week and he said there was nothing to stop Siddal registering all their 1st teamers to play in their pennine league side. Ovenden players are scattered between Boothtown, Illingworth and Irish. All a bit silly really. I almost walked away from the game last year when I played against Thornhills 2nd team in Division 7 they had a few Shaw Cross lads playing for them, some had even played at Dewsbury and its was farcical.

The thing is Leon, when we go on our coaching courses we learn the reasons why youngsters are only permitted to play so many minutes per day or per week to protect them in their years of physical development etc etc but my lad played Conference rugby for Siddal at 16 year old last season on the saturday & U18's rugby on the sunday morning a mere 20 hours or so later. Now I wasn't going to stand in his way, proud as punch I was to be honest that he was considered good enough, but playing so much & to such a high competetive standard & then having the opportunity to play for college midweek and U18's & U23's with his local pro club during the summer is a fantastic opportunity, but the pre-season for them commenced around end Oct-start of Nov so it's quite a lot to commit to, plus college/working part-time too.
I'd prefer the local lads had a break at some point in the calendar year whether they play RL or RU, it just cannot be good for the mind or the body.
As an example of how different Championship clubs are allowed to operate versus SL clubs, I stand to be corrected but I believe & I trust the person who gave me the info, SL clubs are permitted for their academy lads to train up to three times a week plus play competetive game/s but my man tells me that Championship clubs such as Halifax are only permitted to train their U18's once per week under RFL guidelines, exactly why, wasn't explained to me and quite possibly this will change again with the re-structuring of the junior set ups. By comparison, when my lad was an U16 scholar at a local SL club a couple of seasons ago, they were in twice every week & around gamedays they were in twice training, once more for a match prep session the night before a game and then play the following day. The monday session after the game was termed "video review session" which apparently consisted of a brief run through of the weekend's game, then into a training session & the players had their own password to review their individual positives/negatives on a website on returning home.
How level a playing field is that unless your in SL ?

Because the governing body are attempting to bring all formats into summer, it's the same lads who are being stretched across the 12 months in the year, all-year-round rugby. By transforming the mini-mod into summer a few years ago, by the time those kids filter into open age it'll be a natural progression & I'm all for that so long as they abolish the all year round playing.
Greetland 2nds yet again got cancelled yesterday 'cos either of the two sides didn't have enough players. Ridiculously, one of the sides involved will get fined, thrown out of the league & that'll be lads lost to the game somewhere down the line. On a smaller scale proving that expansion is failing.
There are some unusual names in the Pennine league nowadays, I'm wondering if Ponty S & C really are a reformed Chequerfield as is what i hear, the league want their heads looking at if that's the case.

There are some unusual names in the Pennine league nowadays, I'm wondering if Ponty S & C really are a reformed Chequerfield as is what i hear, the league want their heads looking at if that's the case.'"

no they were a delightful bunch weren't they. Only had the pleasure of playing against them twice and both games were abandonned.

Played against them many time, sure they play it tough but sound lads after, and there all Rovers fans to boot. The problem is amateur teams in the Halifax / Bradford area play a much different type of game to what they play ponte / fev / parts of leeds. When we (selby warriors) 1st moved to the pennine we had to adjust then when we played local teams in local cups the difference used to take us back abit took some getting used to again. Chequerfield got a bad name because some one in tyhe crowd thought it would be amusing to fire a ball bearing gun at someone during a game, nothing to do with the players

As opposed to many of the players being d1ckheads on the field eh Gingy ?

Strangely enough, we've had an abandonement over there years ago as well, even wanted to scrap in the sheds after, the players, not the sniper.


My point being, there's a very good reason why some teams change their names.....
The Museum/Moston Rangers/Thameside lot from Manchester were artists at it, Keighley clubs were the same at one time, think of a name, change it, same players in the main.

Which was the club that when disbanded, no more than 2 players from its side were allowed to sign on at other teams, to make sure they were kept apart? or was that just a myth

Can only tell you about my personal experiences and i have played in many high profile games against them over the years with big crowds watching the lot, i was always in the thick of it playing hooker and i always loved playing them never had any problems with them i know a lot of them personally as well. They are a young team now and play out of Chequerfield in Nevison

Chequerfield and Fryston two of the best clubs you could come up against if you wished to be punched in every tackle, kneed in the back and general thuggish behaviour to come out. I dont mind some rough stuff, but there is a line and Chequerfield and Fryston regular crossed it. The Refs were too scared to do too much and allowed it to happen. The Yorkshire League was/is a disgrace and why a number of teams crossed over to the Pennine League! You can try and defend your "mates" gingdong but the fact is they are not Rugby players just Thugby players that have no place in our game. And it would not surprise me that the small idiot element that follow Fev every now and then had something to do with Chequerfield/Pontefract.

Im not defending anyone no need to, telling you about my experiences, Fryston are dirty, horrible scummy cas tosspots allways will be. Chequerfield / Ponte social in my experience nothing like them the remark about them and thugs following Fev is ridiculous. The reason many teams crossed over was because of the administration of the league was rubbish. I played in Yorks premier against the likes of Queens, BRK, Hunslet Warriors, Stanningley, Chequers and loved every min of it. Its a different style of rugby there in your face all the time, intimidating and bullying if you let them, the style of rugby Halifax and Bradford is different, but trust me it can be just as physical and just as dirty

Chequersfield we're kicked outta leagues for a string of bad behaviour a few years back. One incident where a chequersfield player Bit part of an opposing teans physio's ear and the fans shot the ref with an air pistol. Also ponte social (chequersfield reformed) have been known for causing trouble in games this season, for example Vs Stainland where they were throwing punches and trying to bully stainland and the ref. "Great" team. Would be fun to see them playing against woodhouse.

Does that mean they cant Wind up anybody now ?

Chequerfield were never kicked out of the league, The biting bit was on the head of a physio when they were playing Stanningley Crown in Leeds, Crown were the scummiest team iv ever played against, the physio was not an innocent bystander, it was a ball bearing gun not an air pistol it never hit the ref was just fired into the air. Throwing punches and trying to bully goes on in a lot of games, we played them in Ponte 1st game of the season beat them no problems. the lads told me themselves they had a tougher dirtier game in Greetland last Sat. Chequerfield had a few games running were they got some bad press and gave them a bad reputation, undeserved in my view i could name you many teams and clubs much, much worse than them and not all were from the old Yorks league

Undeserved? So the racial abuse of Lee Innes was OK?

As this thread has firmly fallen off the rails and the risk of something being said that could reflect badly on RLFans and Halifax RLFC - I have locked this thread. Please see AUP if you have any issues.