yep as i said the forwards were anonymous after the first 25 but we didn't look fluent at all with the ball and other than a few murrell kicks we never made a break

First half fairly even steven but second half Fev were much sharper.
Their halves were given the room to manouvere behind a strong pack display.
They ran quicker and passed quicker pinging the ball out wide on both sides of the pitch to some purpose with perfect line running and timing.

Possession or rather lack of it,well.

The penalty count whether justified or not didn't help.
Fev had at least 2 perfectly legal one on ones that got them the ball back in attacking posistion and took what should have been our ball from us.

We made more mistakes than Fev and dropped the ball early in the tackle count more than once which was largely due to the pressure slowly mounting against us.

Murrell and Handforth spent more time defending and were well marked on the rare occasions they did get the ball with their lack of pace exposed and they looked slow by comparison.
I had wondered how we would cope.

With that amount of lack of possession any side would be on the receiving end.
It will be a different sort of test of character for the Fax and which will a give another type of indicator as to were we are.

You are right we did look clueless in attack. Harrisons game plan is always about mean defence and grinding the opposition down. When we find ourselves 2 scores down against a well organised fev team you need plan b and we dont have it.

Blimey calm it, we've lost ONE game... We weren't complaining about a lack of ideas when we thumping teams by 50 odd the previous few weeks. It's a wake up call that you can't slack off like we did today in this division and Karl and the players will respond to that.

What's that famous saying - Form is temporary, class is permanent? I am certainly eating my words as i predicted a heavy defeat for us

We were sensational second half and played uphill in the second half the way it should be played - starve the opponents of the ball, exploit the chances that come your way

You gave us too much ball in first half - legally or not and we knackered the forwards out with the constant pressure - they were spent by the 60th min

Murrells kicking and brain was sensational in the first half but abysmal in the second half, Thackery ran around like a headless chicken for 80 mins and Handforth was a spent force due to the defensive shift hed put in - Take these three out of the game and the creativity for Fax is gone

All the ex Fev who ran rings round us last season, were anonymous today, even expected more from Tonka but he might have been a bit overrawed with the occasion as both his spells were avearge

At HT was a worried supporter but in the end it was suprisingly easy

A long way to go with no doubt twist and turns but a massive psychological advantage for us

A great turnout from Fax today 3,686 was the given attendence hope you all got off POR fairly quickly

Fair play to fev today. Would be nice if fev could have provided enough seating for all fax fans today. Know of several that couldn't sit in the allocated fax area. Not too impressed either with the antics of the goading ball boys, but hey ho, we still top of the league and proud of it!

It's just something supporters do when they are top of the league, it's called fun.
I promised To myself that I wouldn't mention this, but your comment has made me change my mind.
We payed £17 to sit in our "segregated" stand, there was no room so we were ushered to behind the posts.
We were a group of 10 adults and 7 children, as we walked in front of the Fev part of the Stand we were greeted with "y etc etc with the hand signs, nothing wrong with that you say, well actually there was, the only reason Fev fans would have known we were from Halifax was that all 7 children had Fax shirts on, none of us adults had.
Don't think "we are top of the league" compares.
Right that of my chest, well done Fev, won the forward battle, won the backs battle, no sour grapes, as I was leaving one of our fans said, " it was the fault of the ref and the touch judges"
Bol"ocks, we were out played.
Simple as that.
Good luck to Fev most of us wish you the best of luck, we just wish you could find a new song.

We got one but you took it off us

Have to agree with above regarding the seating

Earlier in the week i said what you have been allocated would have been enough, turns out it was well short

Think the next block along needed to halved and that would have been enough

Think i called the car parking arrangement - looked chaos before and after the game, the buses didnt help blocking the streets off, suprised they didnt drop and pick supporters up from the main road but we all know why that didnt happen

Should be back to normal next season

Not for long I fear,
But, hey, what an advert for Championship Rugby, 3600 and a bit.
Two very good sides,
Well played.
Mind you, my sporting weekend has been sheit, my local Rugby team lost yesterday afternoon, my grandson's under 9's lost this morning, need I go on.

The way Fax have been going this season could go up to the last game Hope we can carry on from here And improve Just need to win game in hand to keep close to you

If you win the game in hand I think Rovers go top on points diff, but when that happens being top won't mean anything again.



If the response is right todays result could be a good reminder of what level of play is needed against the better sides.

So Fax beat Sheffield, Sheffield beat Fev, now Fev beat Fax!

Cracking league at the top section.

Part quote. Have to agree with above regarding the seating.

I sat with the Fev lads who i know today and apart from
The result.
Every Fax pass being forward.
Every Fax tackle being high.
Fax being offside at every play the ball.
Half the Fax team should have been sin binned.
The ref being a bent Fax Cheating individual with dubious parentage until Rovers went in front it was a very enjoyable experience.



The top stand will sort out the seating problem and I can go back and sit on my own.

Yer we were outplayed 2nd half but that ginger git did give them a lot of good field position pinging us for offside on our own line twice, how many refs bother with that one usually???
We tired from all that defending, some from our own stupidity lie Sams offload that was knocked on, stupid why try force the ball in front of your own posts?
My biggest concern is the same old argument can our half backs create something in tight games? Not enough imo, yet Finn seems to still get his quota of assists and a try in these type of games, why do we stand off him we should put somebody on him to smash him, he is not one for the rough stuff keep at him put one of the big guys to run over him. Worked in the NRC Final, take him out you take a big chunk of Fevs attack away, 50% goes through Finn.

Our bench which has been so effective in recent games didn't have the same input.
Sams push on Finn and daft pass near our own line Andy Brachec knocked on with his first touch all had us going backwards, Ashy and Casey didn't have any effect.

At the end of the day though we were out gunned and out played as you say after the first 25 mins.

The first half was as good a first half of rugby I've seen in a couple of years. Full tilt blood n snot rugby from two teams committed to the game. I detected that Fax were starting to tire at the end of the half, but that could just have been my hyper-manic observations.
We scored two early on and left Fax playing catch up and with Fax's discipline being as it was yesterday, it was never going to happen. A great show from Fax fans who came in numbers.... fab atmos!
All in all a good afternoon from my perspective, less so from yours.
The Fev/Fax game nowadays has a little "edge" to it, that I don't mind really. It maintain's some interest does the rivalry. But all we got is 3 points and keeps Fax in sight. A loss yesterday would have almost certainly meant Fax were gone out of our site. Now there's nowt in the top 5!!

If you pick any of my posts out where I mention George Stokes is clear to see that I think he is the worst, most inconsistent ref in the league. He did little to change my mind yesterday and no team can expect to win a game against decent opposition on the back of the penalty count we had yesterday.

That wasnt the only thing that affected the outcome of the game though. Like has been mentioned we made a load of stupid errors like going 12-4 up and then Barlow trying to offload off the floor in a 3 man tackle, just pure stupidity. We didnt play that well in the first half but took the chances we had but it was clear we were tired and any team defending set after set for whatever reason on your own line is going to crack.

Positives we can take out of the game are that despite been so tired I think we actually defended well considering we probably made twice as many tackles as Fev during the game. Nobody really stood out but I guess thats credit to Fev but a few players didnt step up to the plate.

Back to ref and a lot of the penalties were justified, some were questionable but I think its the inconsistency that frustrates fans. Sat on the side it was clear both sets of players were offside on every defensive set yet it took him until the second half when we were under the cosh to pull out a penalty for it. Yes we were probably offside but we were the set before and the set before. As for the try where Murrell got mugged, theres not a chance that would have been a try if it had been a tv game. Unfortunately for us that was probably the game breaker.

Its a set back but if you only lose a couple of games during the season make sure its against top opposition and we are still in the driving seat for the top spot with plenty to work on and plenty of improvement in us. I think we would have taken that at the beginning of the season.

Thought that this was the game changing moment. We looked relatively in control until that stupid lack of discipline but Fev got two further quick penalties on the back of that and got over the line - and never looked back.

Good turn out but never 1k they gave you last 2 sections of the stand around 500 seats, there wernt another 500 scattered about

Its £17 to get in the ground come what may there is no extra charge for sitting down
The people that were singing that were about the same age as those kids you mention, and im pretty certain they will hear much worse in the playground, and as for new songs I think exactly the same when I hear that very annoying ow hali, hali song

Todays results has made the Top 5 places wide open ,its anybody in any order , i think there are many twists and turns yet to come , and think the League is very wide open , it promises to be a good Summer for rugby in our League .

It was 800 a few days ago...

Oh and how are you going to pay people?

I really don't care how many you brought. You brought enough to make a crackin atmos and makes some of the SL crowds look even more embarrassing!!

I said the stand holds 1600 and if they give you half that is 800, they didn't give you half however just the last 2 sections around 500 seats.
As for paying out non of you had the balls to take the bet on did you, that's how bets work son you have to put your money on the table 1st