And cue the annual Halifax end of season collapse................

On what criteria did/does Ben Black qualify for a work permit by the way. Last time i looked Burleigh Bears were a mid table Queensland cup side and he hasnt played internationally or in the NRL has he ?

Go and ask the Border's Agency if your so interested!

They dont comment on individual cases



By the end of Bens current contract he'll have been in the UK 5 years (albeit not consecutively) so he'd be eligible for citizenship wouldnt he if he wanted it

they didn't exactly struggle cutting you up down the middle, that didn't go unnoticed, and you'll have to toughen up defensively or you'll have real problems for the rest of the season, but you should cope with it cos you're the best team in the division by a mile

Excuse me thats a Country mile

Shad was on Radio Leeds this morning and put it down to 'one of those things' which I guess is true. We had a few opportunities to break clear/having an overlap and we either took the wrong option or the ball didn't go to hand. I thought we deserved to win but luck just wasn't with us. I can't wait for the backlash at the GF

care to expand we have got to the play off eliminator twice and lost, and lost in other play off games but,

I hardly call 1 loss a collapse.

Quality post. Looked at the league table lately?

Hows about you were outplayed for nearly an hour and in that 1st hour all you managed was a ball steal and flop over the line. I agree I thought we had blown it, but we should have been further in the lead before you came back into it and 3 tries in the space of 8 minutes didn't really tell the story of the whole game IMO.

I agree you could have very easily won that game, but having been outplayed for 55 minutes, maybe the lesson Fax will learn (as we have found out all season), that you have to play better for longer periods. We threw away a big lead against Batley and lost, lost in the last minute against Leigh at home and also threw away an early lead against them away. If i remember correctly, we also lost to Whitehaven in the dying minutes. There's no doubt Fax can score a lot of points very quickly, but the fact that you just didn't quite click for so long in the game has cost you a place in the final.

Your right in someways. The result probably says more about us than it does Widnes. Yes the best team won and most of us admit we played poorly. But we played poorly had a masssive penalty count against us and still should have won the game. Given the penalty count the other way im pretty sure we would have been well and truly out of sight with 10 minutes to go.

I find it hard to believe that you think widnes outplayed fax today. We ripped you apart. whenever the there was a period of the game without penalties (which is when you see who is the best team) we scored 3 tries in 6 mins. i found strange that the ball came lose in the tackle on the last in front of the sticks to allow you 2 pts and the 1st play from ko the ref gave a high tackle to piggy back you down the field to put u in fg range. i found even stranger that the ref chose that moment to give a high tackle pen when there must have been at least a dozen from either side.

all in all you boys dug in and hung on for the win fair play.

On Ben Black if he dint drop the ball with the line begging he would have been gamestar not game breaker he was outstanding, his kicking game was perfect and he was a constant threat. Wouldnt it be sweet revenge if he scores the winner in the grand final against widnes????

That's what I'm waiting for. Benny's gonna get you, Benny's gonna get you, Benny's gonna get you.

Ben's won us more games than he's "lost us". I dont believe that he cost us the game on Sunday.

Keep your head up Ben, keep doing what you are doing & good things will come to you & the club.

We all believe in you & the club, we are all behind you.

No, we weren't. Were you even there? Our first penalty was in injury time of the first half, which is how Widnes got so much momentum but our defence matched your attack easy. If the penalty count was reversed we'd have put more on you then you managed on us. Although I agree about ball control being a major factor as well.

the most positive thing i took from the game is the amount of times we started a set of 6 on our own line and finished it with an attacking play in there 20.

I cant think of one example of widnes doing this without the aid of penalties. The ball just dint stick, thats wat happens sometimes our players demonstrated far more skill with ball in hand , they played the percentages and with the help of an unbalanced penalty count they just did enough. I fear for them for the rest of the season cos they dint look capable of scoring from outside the 20 and when the pen count is even they will struggle

get over yourselves...

All we've heard since we won is that the ref cost you the game, that you choked, that you bombed chances to win the game... I heard God before the game saying his car had been scratched in B&M's last time we were there so he said he was against you that day too.. so well done for facing so much adversity.

As I've said on our board.. you will have to face facts at some point that you are simply not as good as you thought you were.
In our previous two outings we have been close to you and the major difference this time is that the sides were a little more level. We now have a pack that can contest the battle in the middle, this frees up our half-backs and our backs have room to apply the finish.

I mean fancy us having the audacity to go to the Shay and get a victory.




At the end of the day your forwards struggled to keep up and were caught out by the offsides. They were regularly blowing for air. Clever running from Smithy caught you out time and again.
Out of your tries.. one was a definite crossing and the other we had to gift to you from the hands of Morrison.
You say that you bombed chances... so did we, three in fact.. If they all had been converted for both sides we still would have won. Plus you had home advantage..
You are cross that the penalty count favoured us... so it should we have put a lot of stock into being disciplined.
It's probably doing you a lot of good to think that you were picked on and that everything is okay.. to be honest, that's fine if you go into the next game with that attitude you will be beaten again and probably a few more times before the end of the season.
You will have the opportunity to hand us our at the Stobart Stadium soon enough but no-one seems to be talking about that.

I say again... get over yourselves, give the opposition some credit for playing better than you and get in the real world.. there are a few good teams in this league that can beat each other and one more has entered the fray, not before too long. Hopefully we will compete as well in the rest of the games this season but we will have to wait and see..
Tables turned you'd be thinking you would never get beat again... til kingdom come........... which would be a draw..

I was there - now I can't say for definite as we were down the other end but I know a lot Widnes fans were unhappy about the 2 of the Fax tries in the 2nd half. The last one Laughton did even query with his touch judge about obstruction and another one was a possible knock on. In that second half, it was Widnes fans who were unhappy with the ref - imagine our surprise then when we get home and it was the fax fans who were calling the ref.

ok Widnes fans, if you were on the receiveing end of a 11-3 penalty count, 8-1 in the 1st half, woldnt you be more than a little agreaved by the ref's performance?

Add to that a try that was grounded short, that equalising 22-22 penalty where he may or he may not have had it stolen it was very iffy it popped out??? etc... etc... We get one call, you claim two all game.
Thats life lets hope we are the ones next time saying to the Widnes fans 'get over it'
Thing is you can't as whilst we did not perform as well we can and Widnes did well on the day we all know that with more luck we could have won. The luck was some of the Refs decisions, hence why we are all still a bit peeved. You would be be honest!
Anyway good luck to you in the Final, its not Widnes we are sore about.

Get your discipline sorted then, jeez.

Coming from Widnes who are third from bottom in the fair play league!!!!

and you'd be saying same I presume if boot was on the other foot???

Come off it, you'd be just as pee'd off as us.

We know we didnt play well enough, but it isnt nice seeing a team being piggy backed up the field time & time again. Laughton didnt miss tackles, but he certainly put you in a position on the field where our mistakes were costly ones.

On a plus side, we know we can play much much better than that, but I doubt you could

I think many of you doubted that we would win on Sunday so goes to show how much stock there is in that!!

Actually i bet if you go through the prediction thread, just about everyone had it as a close game, within a few points. So i don't really get where you're coming from there.

I wouldn't expect the halifax fans to predict a widnes win, but saying it'll be close certainly means we didn't think it would be easy.

just as im sure many Widnes fans doubted Halifax would win the game also.

We backed our team to win,no great suprise there is it?

Despite Laughtons attempts, it was still a great game, if you were a neutral