Gareth is a top rugby league journalist who has one very exceptional distinction. He chooses to write about matters pertaining to the Championship and League One.
Although this blog is devoted to Featherstone Rovers it is always good to read opinions about matters relevant to us, but not specifically about us. We hope you enjoy reading Gareth's column each week.
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.
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