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Dismayed TA couldn't watch
Now that the dust has settled on the last game of the season perhaps it is time to reflect that Warrington has never really been a happy hunting ground for Halifax.
Even when Fax had a good team they seldom came away with anything from Wilderspool and their first experience of the Halliwell Jones Stadium ended in disappointment too.
The last two trips down the A49 prior to the recent Grand Final were in the 2003 relegation season from Super League and in a sense summed up changes that took place in the doleful six weeks that separated those visits.
The first visit took place on July 27th 2003 and finished in a 66-6 defeat.
The team that afternoon was Daryl Cardiss, Andrew Frew, Ryan Clayton, Stuart Donlan, Lee Greenwood, Dane Dorahy, Sean Penkywicz, Andy Hobson, Johnny Lawless, John Hill, Heath Cruckshank, Andrew Brocklehurst and Marty Moana with the replacements being Liam Finn, Chris Birchall, Neil Harmon and Ged Corcoran.
Coach Tony Anderson had been so upset by the first half performance that he spent much of the second half brooding whilst sitting at the front of the team coach parked at the rear of the grandstand.
A couple of his players were only too keen to speculate in town later that night as to whether or not TA had actually had enough and would resign but he stayed to fight another day.
There was a departure however on the Monday as Moana left for Salford and rejoined old friends Steve Simms, Karl Harrison and Gavin Clinch.
That was to be the trend over the next few weeks as some of the club's more experienced players left the Shay to be replaced by untried youngsters who had come through Mick Scott's Academy set-up in the previous couple of years.
Shayne McMenemy had already gone to Hull to start the exodus and by the time Fax returned to Wilderspool on September 7th Cardiss had signed for the opposition and Frew and Dorahy had caught the plane back home to Australia as the club's ranks thinned out.
That second fixture - and its 40-18 defeat - rounded off a horrible few days for the club which had seen it mathematically relegated following a home defeat by Huddersfield (for whom a certain Stanley Gene scored a hat-trick) and the death of Stephen Pearson.
Anderson's side as the season neared a painful conclusion was Lee Finnerty, Lee Greenwood, Chris Maye, Chris Norman, Ricky Sheriffe, Finn, Penkywicz, Harmon, Lawless, Byron Smith, Jaymes Chapman, Brocklehurst and Clayton whilst Hobson, Paul Davidson, Ged Corcoran and Wayne Corcoran started on the bench.
Finnerty and Cruckshank were all that remained of the club's overseas players although by the time we had reached midsummer the former was meeting the RFL's disciplinary committee on an all too frequent basis!
Norman and Simon Grix had been blooded earlier in the season but it was all pretty new for Baz Smith, Chapman and Wayne Corcoran who had all been thrown in at the deep end in the previous few weeks along with Brad Attwood.
And Danny Jones would make a first team bow before long.
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Weather for Halifax
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: -1 C to 0 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: South west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 2 C to 4 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: North west
