Well we won't be winning the challenge cup this year. Not great that.

I said before once we get outside our best 17 we don't look strong and it showed tonight. We are carrying too many players who would not standout at the next level down. On top of that when the main players do not raise their game to compensate for those players been in the team like we saw tonight then you are going to struggle.

Didn’t like there were too many “first choice” players not playing tonight. Only Worthington from the backs.....

Well, I'm speechless. The only good thing is the stream on my phone kept freezing and I missed most of the 2nd half. Birchencliffe, a tin of Thornbridge Jaipur 5.8% Mmm!

Although we hardly ever looked like penetrating a good Batley defence had Rawsthorne grounded the ball it would have helped our cause. He really should have scored that one. I thought only Larroyer, Grix ,Springer and Fairbank showed up at all. Kicking game was atrocious. Having said all that I enjoyed the game and all credit to Batley they played with enthusiasm and no little skill.

Its more the forwards where we are light. I thought only Springer and Fairbank looked decent and I still don't get having a token hooker on the bench. If I were our board there would be three phone calls that need to be made, Ben Evans is now available maybe he has somethng lined up but worth a try, Huddersfield who have you got that we can borrow, and Darryl Powell whats your plans for next season?

Very disappointing- came out after a half time b********g and for about 5 minutes showed what they could do when they played with any sort of speed and enthusiasm - once this evaporated they had no one to take the game or the team by the scruff of the neck keep them motivated. 90% of fans were really excited at the prospect of seeing these new players as we seemed to have brought in some real quality- some of these players however looked to be going through the motions and lacking confidence - hopefully just a reflection of 12 months without a game - although that didn't seem to affect Batley. Finishing on a positive I thought Curtis Davies played well with the sort of enthusiasm and drive lacking in some of his more celebrated team mates.

New squad, New strip, New name same old Halifax. We looked slow and predictable. We never looked like breaking Batleys line in open play and we looked clueless close to the line. I really like the Panthers branding but unless we improve drastically we are looking at lower end of the table and fewer fans. I hate being negative but we didn’t look like a top club.

I watched it all. Fax were more than disappointing...
Now I'm watching a fat orange thing playing for West Wales who are getting a tupping by Widnes and both those games were far more enjoyable than the 6 nations sheeeite .
Clynelish cask strength 58.1%..... delicious....

Anticipated better than that even if they did bomb 2 trys . They looked to be searching for a style of play but were unsure and without a leader.

Ben Evans has signed for Bradford.

Going to have to go for what Meatloaf said then.

None out of three you’re bad ?
DR dead and buried however bad we get..
As for coach....don’t know how much post match bollx like that I can stomach,certainly not a full years worth...

His post match interviews are pointless. Every single one is exactly the same, like a Richard Marshall impersonator staring into the air and saying the same old things.

I just don't know where to align my expectations with the guy or for us this year. Won 5 of his first 6 and then just 4 of the next 20. When you look at who we beat with Grix there; Rochdale, Barrow, Bradford x 2, Dewsbury in the Cup, York, Sheffield x 2, Widnes - Make of that what you will. Although last year was 4 games, there was still evidence that he's not up to it. Lost at home to Dews, a last-second win against Sheffield and lost against Leigh who played with 12 men for close to 50 mins and still lost by 12. You can only base his performance following on from Marshall and evidentially, we have only regressed results wise.

Put it this way, for Grix to win 50% of his games since he's been in charge, by the end of the regular season we will have to win 17 of 25. That would mean us probably finishing top 3 or 4.

If we lose against both London & Bradford, he needs to go.

Never ceases to amaze me how quickly some people change their tune - after the Oldham friendly everything was great, barnstorming forwards, half- back pairing that really clicked - then one game later the teams absolute "s****e and coach doesn't know what day of week it is and should of course be sacked. In reality Oldham looked fairly dire and this week we played badly with a substantially altered team in its first meaningful runout for 12 months. I was just as disappointed as anyone on Saturday, but I'm prepared to give a new team with some real potential a bit longer than 1 game before deciding its time to end it all!

I don't think anyone was over the moon after the friendly win over Oldham, it was a training game nothing more. When Fax parted ways with Richard Marshall I thought it was absolutely the right thing to do. The club's decision to chose a coach from within could be seen as a taking the cheap option in giving a rookie coach his 1st No1 job but if that had to be the case I couldn't see beyond Scott Murrell. Simon was the clubs choice however and although his results have hardly been world beating the circumstances we found ourselves in hardly helped him or the players. Now though he has his own team, he's gained some experience and has what looks like a very good squad to go with for this season. It's in his hands now and we shall see whether or not he is able to take Fax at the very least into the play-offs. The Batley result and performance was more than disappointing but it's gone now so we need to get behind him and the players and see if we can finally get the club to where we all want it to be. Up The Fax!

Haha Im certainly not calling for the coach to be sacked if that is how you took my post. I regard Darryl Powell as one of the best coaches there has been in the UK game in the past 10 or more years and if, and its likely a very big if, he decided he no longer wanted to coach at SL level then any club in the Championship would be daft not to be taking a look.

As for Dual Reg it will just be dressed up as "season long" loans that will have recall clauses. I wouldn't be believing its dead just yet sadly.

Grix has to be given this year, there is no doubt about that. This is truly his team, he has got rid of the players he wanted to get rid of and has brought in a lot of the players he asked for. Ultimatley he will be the one who falls on his sword if results do not go our way. It can't be overstated how much the missing players would have improved the team we put out against Batley. I said before the season started that outside of our first 17 we look pretty weak and to be honest we had at least 4 players who I would not count as in our first 17 and 3 of those were in the pack, a pack that was easily dominated.

One thing that does worry me is how we didn't really look up for the game like Batley did and we looked to lack leadership which is also a worry as Im presuming that is the reason Scott Grix is on the field.

With all that’s gone on and the disruption it’s caused no surprise that we will be off the pace.
But it’s been exactly the same for all the other teams.
With just one game to go on and from watching the games live or the highlights which are now all available on YouTube the only assessment to make is we looked more off the pace than the others.
Of the so called better teams they clearly looked better and we didn’t look to be in that group.

London could be just the right game to focus the minds but if we fail again already the pressure starts to build.

Yes as SG says it’s a long season but with all the rebrand hype and expectancy we need to hit the ground running in the games building up to crowds been allowed back in.

In that sense you only have a short period of time to get any new interest growing and simply stated that means putting on a show and winning, otherwise it’s back to the faithful few that gradually get fewer.

Hopefully a couple of good performances / results and ............................?

Absolutely spot on!

i wouldnt have given him the job in the first place john sharp would have been my choice the performance on saturday reminded me of the game against dewsbury last season where they turned up all fired up with a basic game plan that was good enough to beat us on the day thats the problem for me is thats all it takes these days to get a win at the shay the way are attack was set up on saturday was shockingly poor and thats down to simon grix just like most of his time as coach he is not up too the job and should go

I guess the issue is that pre season we all see a good team being put together, we read all the hype in the Rugby press, we all get our hopes up, and then the team trip at the first hurdle and suddenly it's all 'same old Halifax, same old failings, here we go again with another mid table season'.

Lets face it, there is a high proportion of fans who's fall back position at any slip is 'Sack the Coach', we've lost some pretty good coaches over the years to win pressure (not saying Simon Grix is a pretty good coach, he's still to prove that; I too was surprised when he was appointed).

I guess being a Halifax fan you get used to the roller coaster which is the weekly inconsistency of a Fax team.

The problem is it's exactly that, same old same old. We are out of the Challenge Cup and out of the 1895 Cup already. A couple of early defeats in the league and we would be struggling in that competition too. We haven't topped the 2nd division once since relegation from SL, and while I'm not saying we will top the league this time it would be nice to at least be in the running. I believe our 1st 17 are as good as any in the Championship this time. The players are there, it's a case of over to you now Simon. Up The Fax!

i agree very well put hudd-shay