Fax’s Saltonstall: Change in attitude key to early-season form

Saltonstall, a former Siddal junior who turned professional with Warrington before joining his hometown club in 2014, has been outstanding in the opening weeks of the season and was one of Fax’s best as they downed York 28-4 at the Shay on Sunday.

And the 26 year old admitted the only secrets to his current success are hard work and the demands of coach Simon Grix.

“It was a personal attitude thing,” said Saltonstall, who impressed at centre rather than his more usual wing spot against the Knights.

“I’m the first one to hold my hands up and say that I probably took things a bit for granted under Rich (Marshall).

“I was training a bit steady and that probably reflected on the weekend.

“Simon’s come in and been a bit firmer with me, there’s competition for places and I knew that if I didn’t knuckle down, have a good pre-season and get myself in better shape then I might not have been in the team.

“That’s a big motivator and I feel better for it.

“I played centre a bit last year, but I didn’t think I did as well as I could have.

“I’ve lost a bit of weight, got a bit fitter and I’m feeling the benefits; it’s certainly easier to make those repeat efforts than it was.

“There is still a long way to go in the season, so I just need to maintain that, keep on top of things and keep trying to improve.”

Collectively, Sunday’s win gave Fax a must needed injection of confidence ahead of Sunday’s difficult trip to in-form Leigh.

“We felt we had been training well in pre-season and we were looking to start the season well,” said Saltonstall.

“If we’re honest, we scraped through that first game and then haven’t been great the last two matches against Sheffield and Dewsbury.

“We sat down this week, looked at what we needed to do and we got the reaction we wanted.

“We spoke a lot about field position and giving teams easy metres with penalties and unforced errors.

“We haven’t spent enough time in attacking areas, we’ve been coming out of our own end too much.

“We showed on Sunday that we can score some points when we get in those areas.

“We’ve been trying to play with a bit more width, which is something we haven’t been able to do the last couple of years.

“Scott (Grix) is a good ball player at full back and he gives us that extra pivot to help put those shifts on.”