4-6 after 30

8-6 Fax at H/T

Another 1st half struggle up North.
We'll do well to win this.

Seems its set for set. penalty Fax taking 2 points

Seems like were playing with a bar of soap!

16-6

Game over!

More errors

Ill disciplined, error prone performance and which resulted in our 1st away defeat this season.
Lost count of the amount of times I heard "Knock on from Sammut"
But I suppose we all knew what we were getting with him, Brilliant one game, poor the next!

Badly miss our 2 hookers!

Ooops that's not a good scoreline
Playing on grass seems to be a problem for us

Rubbish

Not a good result, not overly surprised they turned us over though after the display at Dewsbury.
Back to basics, bit like a couple of years back, throw ball catch ball. Repeat 6 times. Start again!

No idea what happened.

At Oldham we were rubbish, in fact worse than. Today we werent that bad, ok, a few handling errors.

Halifax were dross, one dimensional awfulness, and we were dragged down to and below their level.

At least I have just arrived home to a plated up Sunday dinner !!

Poor result but a place in the 8s isn't decided in March

Sloppy might be the best way of describing today.
- Penalties at the ptb usually on the last tackle
- Allowing them to dominate at the ptb when we were in possession
- optimistic offloads
- passing to the ground behind a player more than 3 times
- sloppy passing out wide with one interception try
- dropping the ball yet fax didn't!
- allowing the high ball to bounce
- bit panicky on occasions
- letting the opposition half dictate to the ref

That said defence wasn't that bad, and some passages of play were very good. The ref made what appeared from the stands odd decisions both ways. Not sure he was in control on occasions and he bottled the high tackle.

This passing the ball behind the player happened a lot at dewsbury, I blamed the conditions maybe it was nothing to do with that. Penalties are much more likely at the 4th or 5th tackle players should know that, discipline needs sorting. Overall our control of the ruck is poor in attack and defence, in defence is down to tackle technique in attack it's about technique but it's also an urgency to regain yr feet. If you are on yr back and do the flopping fish refs are not interested, if you make an effort to place a foot on the ground it shows an effort to regain yr feet, result quick ptb or penalty.
Dropped ball, down to pushing the play rather than completing sets respecting possession and playing the % game.

Swinton, Oldham and Fax performances are just not good enough. It strikes me if we are not on a fast track where we can go wide early we cant play. Get the forwards rumbling up the middle and toughen up, its the championship for gods sake

The penalties we give away is holding us back. The faster the game is with the fewest stoppages the better it will be for us with our young professional team.

Time to tell the team to stop playing the ref. It may be a dark art to get up from the tackle at the last allowable moment or to stand as not square as possible to block the play of the ball, but we need to turn this on its head. Get up fast as possible and stand dead square in the tackle, the ref will soon notice the difference between the teams and the penalty count will start turning in our favour. Most of the teams we play won't be able to handle a fast play of the ball for 80 minutes! Yes they may break the line a few times but are they going to make more yards than a kick and another set of six half a dozen times a game?

Let's play the style that suits us not the opposition.

Tbh dewsbury was not good enough either.
Tackling is not that difficult, If the tackled player is on his knees any holding on is always risking a penalty! Put the bloke on his back then fine take a bit if time, if a bloke lands on his knees then don't try and turn him. If the ref calls dominant or surrender fine work the bloke on the ground, that's why you get the call!
If refs see the tacklers getting off quick and getting square or back 10 quick early in the game, then later in the game when fatigue slows things down you are more likely to get the 50/50 calls.
You are right tho TaRa get off the shortest way and get square quickly, that's all refs need to see.

I was a bit worried after the first few exchanges as you looked a lot sharper and made good yards early on and opened us up to go in front at 4-6 fairly easily.I must agree with you guys, I have never seen as many handling errors from a London side gifting us possession for at least 5 or 6 sets in your own half and then 2 or 3 sets when on attack.Still nothing in it up until the drop goal went over when the heads went down a bit.

How did pointer and Dixon get on anyhow? I know it sounds like Sammut was pretty bad!

Pointer was okay, Dixon did not do too much wrong, but Walker had a nightmare. Rhys was off his game too.

Cheers bosty.

I would suggest Sammut was marked out of the game - and your forwards were definitely off the pace and bossed by a semi-professional team.

I would put yesterday down to being a bad day at the office. . Halifax fans are are quite right to be proud of what their team did yesterday. However it was only one game, The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, we shall see how things end up come the end of the regular season.

I think 5 hours on a coach ride is not the best preparation and it showed in all away games. I understand the decision to stay away now before top 4 games has been taken. I Thought Ioane, Offerdal, Barthau, Purts, Pitts and Kear (who played 3 positions!) gave everything. Missing our hookers badly and Spencer/ Battye.