Sponsored by
Halifax RLFC 24 Dewsbury 0: Fax make a solid start to the year
REALISTICALLY, you would have been pushed to find a significant negative at the Shay yesterday afternoon.
Halifax belatedly got their Northern Rail Cup programme underway with a five tries to none thumping of last season's Championship One title winners, centre James Haley scoring twice as Matt Calland's side finally managed to beat the weather after a month of postponements.
Yes, they made hard work of it at times, something you could blame on the incessant whistling of Warrington's Matthew '20 penalties' Thomason, the conditions - bitingly cold and a frost-ravaged pitch that looked like a stretch of Blackpool beach, minus the donkeys - or the fact that Fax have barely trained together with the ball in hand over the last six weeks.
And a 24-0 winning margin is hardly a cricket score, is it?
But not only did Fax never look remotely like losing, even when they only held a slender 8-0 interval lead, Dewsbury just didn't look like scoring a try.
Warren Jowitt's side won 18 games straight as they romped to promotion last year and stuck a comfortable half century on the London Skolars in this competition last weekend.
They found Fax an altogether tougher nut to crack though, mustering just two line breaks over the 80 minutes, both of which were closed down comfortably enough.
The next nine months will tell us whether that says more about Fax's defence or the Rams' attack, but either way Calland will have gone home last night glowing with the kind of satisfaction that coaches only get from seeing a big, fat zero on their opponents' side of the scoreboard.
There was plenty of promise with the ball too.
New import Luke Branighan offered class and a cultured boot at stand off, while another Gateshead refugee, Dylan Nash, scored one try and made another for Haley.
Paul White looked sharp on his first competitive appearance since undergoing a knee reconstruction last summer, while the players who took Fax to last October's Grand Final all showed up well, with Haley, Bob Beswick, Said Tamghart and Lee Paterson particularly impressive.
Then there was the ageless wonder that is Stanley Gene, who looks well on his way to becoming a talisman for 2010.
Gene, who started at half back in the continued absence of Ben Black, split the visitors' right side defence after just two minutes, produced a searing 50 metre burst in the second half and generally looked too hot to handle as he badgered and cajoled his new teammates from start to finish.
Hull KR's favourite son was cruel in defence too, one ferocious challenge leaving the Rams' young full back James Haynes in need of medical attention.
All in all then, just about as good a start as Calland could have wished for.
It took Fax a while to get going, with Gene's early surge, that sent Jon Goddard and then Lee Paterson clear before the cover converged, heralding a sterile opening quarter of an hour.
Calland's quadruple substitution, with Sean Penkywicz, Nash, Frank Watene and Tamghart all going on together on 16 minutes, pepped things up, with Penkywicz and Nash combining nicely on the short side for Haley to score in the corner.
Paterson, who could scarcely miss with the boot last year, scuffed the conversion, but Fax were up and running.
Branighan was held up over the whitewash on the next set, but Dewsbury's never-say-die attitude, when other teams would probably have wilted, managed to stifle Fax until a minute before the break when a Rams' attack broke down on half way and Nash raced away to score.
Paterson was wide again, leaving Fax in front, but probably not by as much as they would have liked.
The second half was straightforward: Dewsbury hanging on with dogged persistence, Fax trying to break free.
The home side were helped by Haynes' sin binning for persistent holding down eight minutes in, with Penkywicz and Gene combining instantly to send Haley in for his second and a 12-0 lead.
And as Calland's attack began to click, there were two more tries at the end of the third quarter for Paterson, from a great pass by Branighan, and last season's top scorer Shad Royston, who opened his account after Gene and Penkywicz had done the damage.
Paterson finally found his range, kicking both conversions, and that was pretty much that as the Rams clung on, deservedly, to respectability.
MATCH FACTS
Halifax: Shad Royston; Paul White, Lee Paterson, James Haley, Rob Worrincy; Luke Branighan, Stanley Gene; Neil Cherryholme, Mark Gleeson, David Wrench, Stephen Bannister, Jon Goddard, Bob Beswick. Subs: Sean Penkywicz, Said Tamghart, Frank Watene, Dylan Nash
Tries: Royston, Haley (2), Paterson, Nash
Goals: Paterson (2)
Dewsbury: James Haynes; Bryn Powell, Chris Spurr, Scott Turner, Stewart Sanderson; Pat Walker, Dominic Brambani; Keegan Hirst, Mike Emmett, Anthony England, Rob Spicer, Andy Bostock, Adam Hayes. Subs: Rob Lunt, Adam Robinson, Luke Stenchion, Scott Watson
Referee: Matthew Thomason (Warrington)
Attendance: 2,141
STARMAN
A star was reborn at the Shay yesterday afternoon as Stanley Gene set about earning idol status among a new set of supporters.
The PNG veteran, who has cult followings at Huddersfield and Hull KR after his exploits over the years, did everything that coach Matt Calland would have wanted of him.
Gene took the direct route with and without the ball, mixing strong, straight running with some heavyweight defence and earning three points in the season-long Star Man competition into the bargain.
One of Fax's big objectives this year is to become more of an attacking threat out wide.
And James Haley was the immediate beneficiary yesterday with two tries to crown a typically rock-solid individual performance.
Haley rarely puts a foot wrong in any game, and looked in fine form all afternoon, with the way he hit Gene's pass for his second try showing real timing.
Haley takes two points, with the final one going to French prop Said Tamghart.
Tamghart never takes any prisoners and really livened up Fax in attack and defence when he came onto the field after quarter of an hour.
PLAYER POINTS
Stanley Gene 3, James Haley 2, Said Tamghart 1
YOU SAY
great defence fax glad to be back blunder
let's get ready 4 blackpool that's where we're going wombat
Good result Fax. Scrappy game, great defence. Fine finish.
Did I see 2 of our captains arguing over a kick?
Do we have to copy every daft Aussie idea? Groons
Calland's quadruple substitution, with Sean Penkywicz, Nash, Frank Watene and Tamghart all going on together on 16 minutes, pepped things up, with Penkywicz and Nash combining nicely on the short side for Haley to score in the corner.
Paterson, who could scarcely miss with the boot last year, scuffed the conversion, but Fax were up and running.
Branighan was held up over the whitewash on the next set, but Dewsbury's never-say-die attitude, when other teams would probably have wilted, managed to stifle Fax until a minute before the break when a Rams' attack broke down on half way and Nash raced away to score.
Email to a friend
Print this page- A58 crash UPDATE: road now re-open after man hit by car earlier this morning
- Crash on the A58 in Halifax this morning UPDATE: Man in hospital with several broken bones
- Taxi worker dies aged 35 after finishing his shift
- Man suffers serious injuries in accident on M62
- How the new Halifax Central Library will look
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Halifax
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -2 C to 0 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: South west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 2 C to 5 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: North west
