The last time he played at The Shay he was playing in the reserves and that was less than 6 months ago!!!!

With Salford I suspect where he had an injury and fell out of favour with McRae. He's still only 25 and has 121 Super League appearances to his name. I judge players on what I see and so far what I've seen from him has been very good.

To put it another way, im sure if we had signed Brock back instead of say Tamghart im 100% sure that he wouldnt be getting the rave reviews that Tamghart has been getting. To be fair to him though he wouldnt be anywhere near our starting 17.

Chalk and cheese my friend. Tamghart is straighforward impact Prop (albeit a good one), Brock has played his best matches at Loose Forward where he has been a bit of a revelation. I wasn't expecting a great deal from him when he signed given some of the ex-fans opinions, but he has proved to be the best forward we have signed so far IMO. Brock has played in many SL games, wereas Tamghart has only played in France Elite, NL2 and 1 test match 5 years ago.

It's difficult judging other teams in the Championship as we haven't played at that level for a few years and I must say that I've really only heard of 4 or 5 of your players. I'm sure they are all very good players, I just say that to illustrate the fact that just because you haven't heard of some Barrow players, doesn't mean to say that they are not very accomplished pro's.

Look out for the 2 Liam's in the halves. Local lads with pace to burn.

Oh and Brett McDermott at prop - OUCH!

I know its a Long way to Barow but what are they dragging their feet for?

Why Sign players and not have them availible for the start of the season?

Or perhaps its to keep under the salary cap, sign players on big terms, but only pay them for the time they're here so get them over later.

3/4 players arriving from overseas will take time to settle into a squad who have been training together for how long, will they be match fit when they arrive? will the players who drop out of the team to get the overseas players into the 13 be happy?

Leaves a lot of questions really. If we announced an Overseas signing, i'd expect them to be arriving ASAP.

They were signed many weeks ago. The UK Border Agency are taking an age rubber stamping their permits/visas etc as has been the case with many RL clubs (Super League included). They were due in the middle of January but the bureaucrats have seen to it taking a further 4 weeks so far. Our local MP John Hutton has agreed to help speed things along.

It will take time for them to gel, but come the start of the Championship they should be pretty much there.

We are actually waiting for 5 players to arrive....

Ned Catic
Zebastian Luisi
Waisale Sukanaveita
Alipate Noilea
Sevanaia Koroi

I hope our team announcer has his teeth in on match days !!!!

Look at the players that have jumped from NL2 to Super League and made a massive success, need I name them all? I am sure Tamghart will go just fine and will make McDermott look second best.

Besides, Tamghart is a prop, Brocklehurst is a back rower so lets compare him with some of our backrowers. Paul Smith, Dwayne Barker and Bob Beswick. All have played in Super League, Dwayne and Bob have played in NL1 Grand Finals and Paul Smith came to us to stop playing full time rugby, not because he was released. All are quality players who have played at higher standards for longer periods.

Brocklehurst has indeed made a lot of apperances in Super League, playing for 3 teams, 2 of which were relegated though (Us and Salford) and the other were around the bottom at the time he played for them. Does that not explain the calibre of team he was in?

Finally, you've only heard of 4/5 of our players? Doesn't that just sum up your rugby league knowledge?

Halifax 46
Barrow 14

Att: 1,650

Fair enough mate. I know nowt.

You really are a Rugby League God.

A fan is a fan. They should be expected to know about their own team and just because they don't know the home address of every player in every team does not mean they know nothing.

Just because you haven't heard of the opponents players does not instantly mean they are no good.

Lets see what Sunday brings along and hope we all get a thoroughly enjoyable game.

Good luck to both teams in contributing to a good game, but especially the Fax boys, I'll be cheering you on from behind the goals in the South Stand.

Prediction

Fax 36 Barrow 16

Att 1953

MOM Saaaayeeeeeeeed

Correct me if i'm wrong, but are you talking about Said Tamghart ? Oldham player last year ?
Doesn't wear sock's?

He's a good player ( off the bench ).

yes

Yeh thats the one



If he started wearing socks people wouldn't think he was the same person

Sorry - I got a little carried away there. Wrong comment. I am however a little surprised you didn't know more of our players . . .

Good Luck for Sunday, should be an exciting game!

No worries mate. Barrow haven't played Fax for a few years (and didn't really turn up in 2005!!), so I really haven't kept up with teams in the old NL1 - too busy worrying about our own chances in NL2.

Seriously, Brock has looked good to-date, as have pretty much all of our new signings that are actually in the country !! Hopefully we may get our 'foreign legion' in the next week or so.

I hope we give you a good game and am praying for a bonus point at least. Given we will be missing 3 or 4 regulars and are waiting on the 5 Antipodians, realistically a good performance from the Raiders would do me to be honest.

Come the start of the League campaign we should be even stronger.

It'll be nearly 7 months since a competitive match at home for us when Keighley visit next weekend. Pretty ridiculous if you ask me.

I am sure the league game will be a much better spectacle when we're both at full strength and in the full swing of things. On the subject of your imports, what are the chances of all of them playing for Barrow? I have heard (via your other forum) that the main issue is with your Fijians, most notably Wes Suka and that they are likely to be going to French RU. Any updates? I can imagine some attractive rugby if they play.

I think the only question mark surrounds Suka. The fact that he won Fijian player of the year might have got his agent seeing Fijian Dollar signs. The story actually said that he had an offer to France to play League AND Union but it also said that he could take an offer up with his 'old' club in Australia. Then in the next breath he (or his agent) said that there were some issues in his Barrow contract that needed ironing out and they were talking to the club about it.

At the end of the day all the Fijians have signed 2 year deals that have been ratified by the RFL - so they are officially Barrow players. If they don't fulfill their contracts at Barrow, whatever club they go to will have to pay a transfer fee or Barrow could stop them playing anywhere really.

Hopefully they'll all be here next week.

We had a similar scenario with Aaron Heremaia and Sam Hoare last season, they both went to play in Australia and told nobody at the club. We didn't get any transfer fee though, so you may be out of luck. It should't be allowed.

God you're good.


Stick to Super League lad. Tha knows nowt.

we did and we didnt even play that well to be honest, we've certainly got a few more gears to go through

It was a surprise.....

I thought Barrow would have been harder to beat.....

Agreed, Mind you the Barrow fan who predicted 40-0 wasn't far out was he/she

[urlhttp://www.nwemail.co.uk/raiders/barrow_raiders_fail_on_fax_finding_mission?referrerPath=home[/url

Report and pictures from the Barrow paper.

Without taking anything away from your teams good preformance. We to have got some gears to go through, I didn't go to the match yesterday but I heard Barrow were their own worst enermy. And we did field a weaker side.

PS I did my score prediction before I saw the team sheet. icon_smile.gif icon_smile.gif

Not a bad review of the game. Shame about Ellis, he was having a good game as well.