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Preparation is everything...
So, how do you approach an evening kick-off in Cumbria if you're a coach?
You can't really justify an overnight stay but on the other hand you don't want a mad dash up the M6.
And you have to go that route rather the "back road" via Skipton because there are usually plenty of players to pick up in the Leigh/Manchester areas.
There has been plenty of practise in going up there in recent seasons of course...but to Whitehaven!
The last couple of trips for night matches have been to Workington, both in the Steve Simms era.
Preparation was different for both...but results were disappointing.
We should have feared the worst on Friday 13th January 1995 anyway.
Fax were on the rebound from a 40 point mauling at Leeds on New Years Day although that had been the only blip in the league since Simms had taken over from Malcolm Reilly the previous September.
Derwent Park and Sky awaited at 7.30pm and Simms decided to leave at dinnertime and stop en route for a meal.
Karl Harrison was firmly of the opinion that he, if no-one else, had to eat a bowlful of pasta no later than four hours before kick-off.
So, as the team used to pick up the West Lancashire contingent at a hotel just off the M61 at Westhoughton in those days, it was decided to dine there.
The trouble was that the team was fed and watered for 2.00pm and bored so off we set.
By 4.30pm we were in Keswick and it was far too early to press straight onto the ground.
So it was a bored team which found itself strolling round the gift shops.
Less than ideal preparation which perhaps had a bearing on a horrible 36-10 defeat.
It was no wonder then that Simms changed the routine for the trip to Workington on May Day Bank Holiday Monday 1996.
The two bottom teams in the newly formed Super League were on Sky and without a win between them.
This time it was an early, 8.00am start, train at Workington RUFC on arrival and then off to a hotel for food and a nap for those who fancied one.
The result seemed slightly better – an 18-18 draw – with John Bentley scoring two tries and Michael Jackson one on a dusty pitch and on a red hot day.
You can imagine the howls from modern day Super League coaches if their teams had to fulfil a similar schedule....
But towards the end of the 1973-74 season there were two occasions when Halifax played on both the Saturday and Sunday of a weekend to clear a fixture backlog – and one of those was at Barrow!
On March 2 they played at Batley (won 18-15) and on March 3 at Swinton (won 16-9).
A fortnight later, March 16th they beat Huyton at home 29-8 and beat Barrow 23-3 at Craven Park on St Patricks Day.
That fixture backlog hadn't really been caused by bad weather but rather the coalminer's industrial action which had to a ban on floodlights which prevented midweek rearranged matches.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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