Shoot me down if you want, but having watched Fax for a long number of years, I remember (probably pre-Super League days) that the way the team approached playing "superior" teams was to hit them hard in the tackle.

Not the daft "big hits" we see nowadays, where it's just a big body-check and no arms involved, but one player low (to stop them), one player high (clamping the ball), and then a couple more crashing in to knock them down.

When you're not at your best (as we're not now!), you have to regard the opposition as "superior", but very beatable, and adopt your play appropriately.

When Fax won the Championship in 1985/6, why was it? We had a decent team, but it wasn't the best in the league, and (IMO) we won because we battered the opposition into submission (c/o a certain Geoff Robinson in the main) - plus two very dodgy Fax and Featherstone timekeepers in the last game!

Time to get back to basics and tackle our hearts out. The brilliance we saw earlier in the season will come back more as a result of a forcing a tired opposition into mistakes than sheer effort on the Fax players part.

[size=150C'mon the Fax!!![/size

i was told my uncle charlie renilson was the best tackler ever for fax by a coulple of the old heads

take that littlerich!

frank watene is a good tackler. hes a big meathead

during 2nd half at Batley one of their forwards dropped a pass trying to run out of defence, this was purely due to Fax's tamgart and co lining him up for a hit. It was hilarious, not so obvious on SKY.

This sort of defence is needed from the outset against Leigh and Toulouse.

"Defence wins games" !

From the outset and for the next 80 minutes....!!!!

I agree partially but the game these days is much quicker. If you commit 4 players in a tackle and the ball gets offloaded there's a massive gap in the defence and you're stuffed. Plus it's knackering having to get up off the floor for 80 minutes and committing more defenders on floor only adds to the fatigue, surely?

no. More players in the tackle means slower play the ball, defence on the front foot, less fatigue.

But what's the point when lying on seems to go unpunished these days (as it's the only way we've been slowed down this season)?

we dont have the defence on the front foot though, our defence site back, when the opposition plays the ball we dont move up to him we leave him to come to us.

Moving up together yes but you can't have players flying out of the line all of the time.

the reason why i thought batley played so well was in the first half they dominated every tackle, they were in control everytime meaning that they were always able to put your players on their backs therefore slowing the play the ball down. This then affected your speed of attack and you struggled to break them down in the first half.