Championship preview: Top versus bottom as Halifax Panthers aim for sixth straight win at Hunslet
Championship leaders Halifax Panthers will be looking to make it six wins out of six when they travel to bottom of the table Hunslet on Friday, April 11 (kick off 7.45pm).
While the Panthers have sprung into life in 2025 with wins over Sheffield Eagles, Barrow Raiders, York Knights, Featherstone Rovers and Batley Bulldogs, newly-promoted Hunslet are pointless from their opening five league fixtures.
Assessing Fax start to the campaign, the club’s director of rugby, Richard Durgan, told Panthers TV:
“You have aspirations early on to try and have a good start. The league is going to be tight I think. There are a lot of good teams and teams can beat each other, so it is imperative to get going and we’ve done that.
“If you’d have said to me at the beginning of the year you’d be five out of five I’d have clearly been asking what have you been taking, but we’ve been good, we have conceded very few points and we look dangerous in attack. It’s been hard to get out of D for some of these teams.
“We are absolutely over the moon with how we have started but that’s all it is. Let’s be realistic, it’s a long season, five out of five is great but there’s a long way to go.
“We have got a few games now on the bounce so let’s see where we are after that. That will be the test of where we are at. We are not getting carried away.”
Fax, despite only having a 20-man squad, have been helped with very few injuries, but Durgan revealed the club will try to add to Kyle Eastmond’s playing group.
He said: “Keeping the camp happy has been important and it’s helped by having a really good start. Certainly having everyone fit is helping us.
“We’re always looking and keeping our eye out. We’ve been fortunate that the squad has been fit with the great strength and conditioning, that’s helping us.
"But long-term we are going to have to probably use a bigger squad than what we have got.
“If we’re going to bring someone in they have got to be as good or competitive with the lads we have got. They have got to add to us rather than weaken us.
“We’re not in a bad place but with the amount of game we probably do need some bodies.”