Championship Talk: Fax are on fire

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Fax are on fire

IT seems an almost annual observation, but Halifax are punching above their weight yet again in the Championship.

Saturday’s 32-18 win at Batley pushed Fax up to third in the table, with every team now having played 15 matches.

The club has made two of the three Qualifiers to date under Richard Marshall, each time operating with a part-time squad.

Now they are threatening to upset the odds again.

Last year their players took a pre-season pay cut on the proviso that making the top four would see them reimbursed, which they were.

This season they almost certainly have the sixth biggest budget in the competition, but are currently above three of those five other sides, and only a point behind full-time Toulouse.

And all this has been done while sticking doggedly to their principles of running a reserve team, which continues to pay dividends for Marshall’s squad.

A healthy percentage of Sunday’s side has spent significant time in the second team, perhaps most notably man of the match Chester Butler, who League Express noted “is quickly emerging as one of the best young players outside Super League”.

Butler is the prime example of why having a reserve grade works, catching the eye there for Fax before grasping his chance in the Qualifiers with an eye-catching display at Warrington in particular.

From there he earned selection for the Welsh squad that competed in last year’s World Cup, has kicked onto another level in the back row this season, and was recently rewarded with a new contract.

There are others, like props Elliott Morris and Sion Jones who are following the same path, and establishing themselves at senior level while Fax continue to challenge teams with bigger budgets.

They face one of those this weekend in a crucial race for the top four, when they travel to sixth-placed Leigh.

The Centurions will be acutely aware that they can probably only afford one, or maybe two more defeats in their final eight games if they want to make the four.

Victory over a rival above them this weekend would provide a major boost.

But Fax - led by wily halfback Scott Murrell, so impressive in the Summer Bash win over Featherstone - will understand the significance a win for them could have as well.

Halifax were emphatic 38-18 winners when they met back in March but this is a very different Leigh team now - it should be a cracker.