So perhaps there is no surprise in the fact that only four lads are still playing professionally from the Halifax team which played in the last competitive match at Thrum Hall.

That was in February 1998 and was a Challenge Cup tie against old foes Huddersfield.

Were you one of the 5,862 fans who made the trek up Gibbet Street or Pellon Lane or Hanson Lane?

In fact, is it really a decade ago?

Fax won quite easily in a match which was nevertheless extremely competitive and dominated by the two packs.

Andrew Hardcastle records their team that day as Damian Gibson, Fereti Tuilagi, David Bouveng, Martin Pearson, Daio Powell, Chris Chester, Gavin Clinch, Karl Harrison, Paul Rowley, Kelvin Skerrett, Gary Mercer, Des Clark and Marty Moana with Craig Dean, Simon Baldwin, Carl Gillespie and Richard Marshall crowding into a cramped Thrum Hall dugout designed for a coach and a physio in the 1950's!

Those four players are Gibson, Baldwin, Chester and Moana although Marshall only retired at the end of last season and is now assistant coach at Swinton.

He played alongside Lions' coach Paul Kidd of course in the Halifax Academy side in 1993!

One strange feature – to modern eyes anyway – was the fact that Dean didn't take his subs suit off at all and it's a rarity now if a replacement doesn't take to the field at some stage.

No 12 interchanges in those days!

Dean was never going to start a game now that Clinch had arrived and to be fair was perhaps only included due to a dearth of backs at the club.

He sat on the bench for the first half dozen matches before going out to Featherstone on loan (where he rejoined Steve Simms) and was quietly on his way out of the club.

John Bentley was still wintering at Newcastle and Kevin O'Loughlin and Damian Munro were soon to be swapped for Jamie Bloem.

Once the side settled down with the arrival of the South African that was just about it personnel wise with the exception of the arrival of Martin Hall in June.

That was one feature of the team which included newcomers in Gibson, Clark, Mercer and Clinch and which included seven ever presents.

That threequarter line had all been at the club in the 1997 season but had only played in fits and starts whilst Skerrett had missed over half that particular campaign with a broken arm.

Coach John Pendlebury had welded this mixture of old and new with a major factor being a week spent at the La Santa complex in Lanzarote.

And the team tended to stick together as a unit after that. It was a common sight to see them en masse enjoying Monday lunch in "Maggie MacFly's" in town.

There was a large turnout for "Mad Monday" at the end of a season which had seen the side finish third and only lose to St Helens in the playoffs.

There was one notable absentee, Pendlebury himself, who had ignored his own post match instructions that a full attendance was obligatory, and who was in Florida with conditioner Steve Walsh and their families!