Johnston is Fax’s Burrow, says coach

Johnston was the star man in Halifax’s 48-6 home victory over Doncaster and Fax have also won the team of the week award.

Every week each coach in both Championship competitions is contacted to help put the awards together.

Hunslet Hawks centre Jimmy Watson has won this week’s Championship One award.

Halifax half-back Ben Johnston continued his eye-catching start to the campaign with an influential display in his side’s big Shay win.

Fax coach Karl Harrison said: “Ben has had a great start to the season.

“He’s a young kid that we’ve given a chance to, and he’s grabbed the opportunity with both hands.

“He’s very similar to Rob Burrow in many ways – he runs at big guys and scares people to death because of this pace. They can’t get a shot at him.

“He’s still miles from the finished article, but his kicking game is improving and he will only get better when the fields dry up because he is extremely quick.”

Halifax produced their best performance of the season in inflicting only Doncaster’s second defeat of 2014.

Harrison said: “That performance has been coming for a while.

“We could be sat here with six wins from six – the two games we lost came at Featherstone in the last five minutes, and against Batley in the last second when maybe we lacked some composure.

“On Sunday we talked about putting on an 80 minute performance of patience and execution, and Doncaster couldn’t live with it.”

Halifax prop Tony Tonks joined Johnston in the team of the week.