Re: St Helens v Halifax : Sun Jul 28, 2019 7:45 am  

wire-flyer wrote:

I wonder what certain Saints fans would be saying on here had Wire or Wigan only beaten a championship side 26-2 today? Credit Halifax all you want but Saints should have done better today and you bleeding well know it.

You are correct, if we had played the Wire instead we would have played much better than that and probably would have scored our usual average of 30+ points. I will give Halifax a lot of credit by the way they fully deserved it and played the game to keep the score down, heroic effort from them.

Re: St Helens v Halifax : Sun Jul 28, 2019 8:32 am  

Ruune Rebellion wrote:

I was thinking the same myself. Maybe they are a sleeping giant. Used to love my trips to thrum hall. Maybe if I came into a bit of money I would invest in Halifax. No point in St Helens as they already have the richest investors is SL with Mike Coleman, but it would be ace to give Halifax a load of money and see what they could do

Both Fax and Swinton are playing below their success history.

Fax have 4 Championships and 5 Challenge Cups and were part of the biggest crowd in rugby league (and all Northern sport) history in the 1954 CCfinal replay. When you think that Wire and Fax played three finals in two weeks at Wembley, Odsal and Maine Road for a combined crowd of 220,935, Fax are definitely a sleeping giant.

Swinton have 6 Championships and 3 Challenge Cups and are one of only seven clubs who’ve ever won “All Four Cups” in one season.

Re: St Helens v Halifax : Sun Jul 28, 2019 10:31 am  

wire-flyer wrote:

I wonder what certain Saints fans would be saying on here had Wire or Wigan only beaten a championship side 26-2 today? Credit Halifax all you want but Saints should have done better today and you bleeding well know it.

If the game had gone the same way the more sensible Saints fans would be saying the same thing. That Wire/Wigan were massive favourites which changes the mentality of a team, that they forced the play a bit too much in the first half but controlled pretty much the entire game and we’re up against a resolute and motivated defence. Despite this there was only ever 1 winner, Halifax never looked close to scoring.
Wire/Wigan did everything they needed to to win, the result was never in doubt and Halifax deserve massive credit for their efforts.

Those suggesting Saints were really poor both don’t understand modern rugby league and are doing Halifax a massive disservice.

Re: St Helens v Halifax : Sun Jul 28, 2019 10:37 am  

Psychedelic Casual wrote:

Both Fax and Swinton are playing below their success history.

Fax have 4 Championships and 5 Challenge Cups and were part of the biggest crowd in rugby league (and all Northern sport) history in the 1954 CCfinal replay. When you think that Wire and Fax played three finals in two weeks at Wembley, Odsal and Maine Road for a combined crowd of 220,935, Fax are definitely a sleeping giant.

Swinton have 6 Championships and 3 Challenge Cups and are one of only seven clubs who’ve ever won “All Four Cups” in one season.

Oh come on. You don’t think the sporting and social landscape has changed in 65 years?

I think Fax can be bigger than they are of course with some investment and some success but to suggest they are a “sleeping giant” based on attendances from 65 years ago is just daft.

This is not having a go at Fax, it’s just a little realism is needed.
They are also surrounded by current decent sized clubs in Huddersfield, Bradford and Keighley, which would restrict their growth to some degree and of course Halifax is still a relatively small place itself.

Re: St Helens v Halifax : Sun Jul 28, 2019 11:08 am  

The daily mail has actually has a report about the game as one of its main sports stories! What’s going on?

Re: St Helens v Halifax : Sun Jul 28, 2019 1:17 pm  

wire-flyer wrote:

I wonder what certain Saints fans would be saying on here had Wire or Wigan only beaten a championship side 26-2 today? Credit Halifax all you want but Saints should have done better today and you bleeding well know it.

Why? The game for Saints was about getting through it in a professional and efficient manner without losing any players. We were always going to win and Saints defense is that good, Halifax didn't threaten the line once. I thought Saints went about things very respectfully, taking the 2 was totally unnecessary, but they did it as a doff of the cap to Halifax. There were certain sets, usually after a Saints error where we obviously stepped up the intensity and just oblierated Halifax, often winning the ball back. Then the intensity would drop again.

A few Wire fans near me were saying if Saints don't score 80 it means we've done badly. But Saints never went into that game with the intention of humiliating Halifax. We went into it with the intention of getting through the game with our place in the final secured and as much energy preserved as possible. I think we did that, the likes of Walmsley and Thompson didn't do huge minutes and we didn't let Halifax score a try. Halifax were always at arms length.

Had Halifax played any other side in Super League yesterday they would have scored at least a couple of tries and been in the game. They were superb and should be proud of themselves. They've got some very good players and really worked hard for each other. Frankly disrespectful of fans of other clubs to be mocking Saints for 'only' beating Halifax by a certain margin.

Re: St Helens v Halifax : Sun Jul 28, 2019 3:03 pm  

Saddened! wrote:

Why? The game for Saints was about getting through it in a professional and efficient manner without losing any players. We were always going to win and Saints defense is that good, Halifax didn't threaten the line once. I thought Saints went about things very respectfully, taking the 2 was totally unnecessary, but they did it as a doff of the cap to Halifax. There were certain sets, usually after a Saints error where we obviously stepped up the intensity and just oblierated Halifax, often winning the ball back. Then the intensity would drop again.

A few Wire fans near me were saying if Saints don't score 80 it means we've done badly. But Saints never went into that game with the intention of humiliating Halifax. We went into it with the intention of getting through the game with our place in the final secured and as much energy preserved as possible. I think we did that, the likes of Walmsley and Thompson didn't do huge minutes and we didn't let Halifax score a try. Halifax were always at arms length.

Had Halifax played any other side in Super League yesterday they would have scored at least a couple of tries and been in the game. They were superb and should be proud of themselves. They've got some very good players and really worked hard for each other. Frankly disrespectful of fans of other clubs to be mocking Saints for 'only' beating Halifax by a certain margin.

Fax battled well in defence, but never got anywhere near Saints line. There was nothing to suggest they'd score at least a couple of tries against any SL opposition, so I disagree with the sweeping statement that's highlighted.

Re: St Helens v Halifax : Sun Jul 28, 2019 3:18 pm  

MorePlaymakersNeeded wrote:

Fax battled well in defence, but never got anywhere near Saints line. There was nothing to suggest they'd score at least a couple of tries against any SL opposition, so I disagree with the sweeping statement that's highlighted.

As Fax knew they were not going to win this game I should imagine they set there stall out to make it a defensive damage limitation one, Saints have the best attack and the best defence in super league. So if Fax had played another super league with less attack and defence strengths they may have had been able to proportion more energy to score points.

Re: St Helens v Halifax : Sun Jul 28, 2019 8:01 pm  

Him wrote:

Oh come on. You don’t think the sporting and social landscape has changed in 65 years?

I think Fax can be bigger than they are of course with some investment and some success but to suggest they are a “sleeping giant” based on attendances from 65 years ago is just daft.

This is not having a go at Fax, it’s just a little realism is needed.
They are also surrounded by current decent sized clubs in Huddersfield, Bradford and Keighley, which would restrict their growth to some degree and of course Halifax is still a relatively small place itself.

I actually thought Halifax would bring more fans to Bolton than they did given it was their biggest game in 30 years.

What is their current average home crowd?

Re: St Helens v Halifax : Mon Jul 29, 2019 10:49 pm  

EHW wrote:

I actually thought Halifax would bring more fans to Bolton than they did given it was their biggest game in 30 years.

What is their current average home crowd?

I don't know the current average, but it will start with a "1" followed by 3 digits. There's latent support in the town, but we need success on the field to build more support. Tbh, it probably didn't help the "casual" Fax fans to attend given the assumption that we'd get smashed by Saints. The location and lack of parking didn't help either, but probably wouldn't have affected the attendance.

As was noted on TV, 5 minutes from the end, you'd have thought that Fax had won and Saints lost looking at the crowd. All the noise in the last 10 minutes (ref: "twist and shout") was from the Fax fans, less in number but far greater in volume.