CAPTAIN Sean Penkywicz helped himself to a sizzling hat trick of tries as Halifax made it two wins out of two in the Northern Rail Cup with a 64-40 victory at Keighley yesterday.
Penkywicz struck twice in the first half as the visitors eased to a 40-12 interval lead, before completing his treble after the break.
Click here to see the slide show from the game.Click here to read the match report."Sean has got real speed and that makes him so dangerous," enthused coach Matt Calland.
"With him and Mick Govin around the ruck, and now Janan Billings in the mix as well, we have real pace there.
"If we get quick play the balls down the middle of the field I don't think any team in this league will be able to live with us.
"I know we will always score points with the players we have in the team, and to finish with 11 tries away from home is always pleasing."
Of more concern to Calland was stemming the flow of points at the other end of the field, with Keighley finishing with seven touchdowns after looking on course for a hiding at half time.
"I thought we played how we trained, to be honest," said Calland.
"Training has been pretty flat all week and that was something we tried to address before the game but it was still flat, and to concede 40 points like that is not acceptable.
"We will be doing defence, defence and more defence this week - no offence until we get it right.
We conceded two penalties close to our line early on and conceded two tries from them.
"They were soft tries, tries that should have been stopped.
"We have done a lot of work on it already but Keighley have shown us there are some deficiencies in there that we need to put right.
"I want us to be a team that is hard to score against, not a team that anyone can score against.
"I want us to be a lot tougher, a lot meaner with a lot more bite.
"If we can sort the defence out, we will be there or thereabouts this year.
"That's the big question, can we sort it out?"
Calland's only injury concern was Billings, the former Rochdale player, who went over on his ankle in the second half.
The full article contains 409 words and appears in Evening Courier newspaper.