Watched the full game on YouTube. Few thoughts.
1. It was a good hard game which will do both clubs good. Some real fire and venom in the tackles which I'm sure Kear and Marshall will be glad their players received.
2. Wildie looks an excellent addition. We saw with Hallas at hooker how much it hampered our attack. Quick, accurate passing from Wildie gave Keyes and Lilley time with the ball.
3. Olly Wilson will break through into the first team in 2019, just like Storton did last year.
4. I think losing to Workington and having to go through the play-offs was a blessing in disguise (as tortuous as it was at the time) Most of last year, in fact probably for a few years we have lacked backbone and fight. We've been bullied by teams, especially against Fax. We seemed to mature from the Workington loss and handled the bullying, little bit grubby tactics in the final. And I think it really brought the team together. Halifax are obviously a classier team than Worky and certainly weren't grubby. But they've bullied us every single time we've played them and we just haven't had the bottle to stand up and fire back into them. I saw a team that had no problem giving it back to Fax and even try and be the bullies. If Walshaw puts the same shot on Keyes like he did two years a go, or our full back gets thrown into some railings, we won't just stand around and ask the ref if he saw it. Webster and Wildie looked like leaders.
The results irrelevant and doesn't prove where either team will finish. But I think it shows we can compete for a top 5 spot. Many points will be won whoever performs the best on the day.
