So it is our final home league game of the season this sunday before the playoffs it doesn't seem 2 minutes since we were playing batley away back in January to start this season. As for the game it will be interesting to see if we rest any one or go with our strongest side injuries permitting. Simon does say in his post widnes match interview that he wants right a few wrongs against the big 2 he feels we did our selves justice for about 50 minutes away to fev but in the cup game at home we rolled over a bit too easy and didn't play our style of rugby. As for fev i would guess that they will play there strongest available side with having a week off the following week. Score wise it is a hard one to call with the doubt over team selections but i will go for a panthers win 28-24 and then roll on the playoffs.

Whether to play JWH will be among the big decisions, with him being out for a while if he’s fit he’ll need some game time for some match fitness and this is the last opportunity before the playoffs.

I would fancy us to win this game if we were playing our strongest available team but with one eye likely to be on the play off game the week after it makes sense for Grix to be very tactical when it comes to selection. Im sure we will give a good account of ourselves though.

My opinion is that Grix is 90 % certain on his 17 for the playoffs . The choice is do you play that 17 against fev to create momentum into the 1st playoff game or do you hold back key players through fear of injury, personally I’d play my cards now , even if we don’t beat fev a close game will breed confidence that we can compete at that level . Tbh which ever path Grix chooses I have confidence he will make the right calls , whatever happens from this point forward I think we can agree we’ve stepped up another level from last season and I personally feel very proud to be a fax fan at the moment , to be able to compete with a team who have more than likely spent more than double than us through sheer guts ,determination , teamwork , fitness , quality coaching on a part time level is to be quite honest absolutely brilliant.

Agreed, although I think we've already competed well twice against Fev this season and we are a much improved team now. One of the standout reasons i believe is our fitness, it really has shown in many games this year. As for the result on Sunday it really does depend on the team selection from both sides. Up The Fax!

Good afternoon Pete , I hope you are well,yeah I can see Fax beating Fev on Sunday , and really hope they do , but then they will have to go to POR and beat Fev again in the play offs , a more difficult task not impossible though I would love to see Fax at the LSV in theMPG , providing we get there , I take nothing for granted .

Ey-up Ian, it's good to hear from you. Here's to October 2nd and a few jars in Leigh, hope to see you then. You never know.

So pretty strong squad for the game and as a side point in the comments it looks like Brad Knowles won’t be with us next year with his dad saying he’s not been offered a contract.

He
Might not have been offered a contract yet. Doesn’t mean he won’t be offered one.

Could be but if you read the post from his dad replying to someone doesn't sound like it.

Paul Knowles Quote
"************ tell me bout it ! Disgusted in the club . Ran his blood to water to get back and to be told he’s not wanted ! Good job hes mentally strong cos this would destroy most."

Sport can be really, really harsh but unfortunatley there is no room for sentiment and money will be even tighter next season, if we are going to improve the term then these tough decisions have to be made.

On the Brad Knowles situation, I’ve read his dads comments, he also said a few comments last week about not being selected in the squad but then deleted his posts . It’s obviously been an emotional roller coaster of a year for the Knowles family and for that I have massive sympathy. As regards his selection Grix has/had some massive calls to make in his squad selection and ultimately he has to do what’s best for the team , only he and Scott will know where Brad is at with his fitness etc . I did notice a photo of Brad laughing at the awards ceremony last night which would indicate there hasn’t been a massive fall out on his side . There are a few players who are on the edge of having contracts renewed or not renewed as it seems these announcements have been postponed for now , the only one certainly leaving is Ed barber ( which is a crying shame as he has been outstanding this year ) with a strong suggestion that Ryan king is coming in , more or less a like for like swap. The ones who are on the periphery would be Knowles, Morris , aston ( really impressed with Aston tbh not gonna find much better as cover in the halves ) garside, Oakley ( could be the next Ben tibbs so who knows ) worthington ( brilliant all round centre but 2 tries in 2 years isn’t enough , tibbs and arundal who have over 20 tries between them will be our 1st choice centres next year imo) Hope gee n gwaze re-sign , I noticed when whilst out after the Bradford game gee n Murray are big mates and the fact Murray as re -signed is a big bonus as I suspect they travel together for training and match days etc . . As regards money I’m not convinced money is as tight as the board makes out , walmsley and jouffrets new contracts wouldn’t have come cheap . I believe some of our sponsors would be directly responsible for financial investment in certain players . On the full 80 mins ( appreciate the source is suspect but I believe there is an element of truth to this one ) we did offer Gareth widdop a contract but he wanted too much money and splashing out on a player and potentially disrupting the Keyes/ jouffret partnership we decided against it , we would have known widdop wouldn’t have come cheap so there must still be cash in the bank . Anyhow until announcements are made it’s all speculation, still positive about the remainder of the season and on to the next .

Absolutely and although we haven’t seen much of Brad this year if we can improve upon him when he was at his best then that will mean we will have a quality addition incoming to add the squad.

On another subject Chris (i’m In love with myself) Kendal in the middle for this one.

I will give a lot of credit to brad for coming back from that type of injury in that space of time but as for next season signing wise it will be quality over quantity. Simon as to be ruthless in this department if we are to keep progressing as a club. I would expect but could be wrong that garside-morris-oakley and worthington will join barber in leaving the club personally i would like to keep aston and hopefully gee and gwaze will also sign up for next season and fairbank too. I would like us to sign another to partner tibbs and also to replace worthington if he leaves because arundel as still to convince me he is the answer plus mCcomb is more of a winger for me. I would also like better competition for woody at fullback even though louis does a good job there. And finally a few hardcore forwards just to put the icing on the cake.

Regarding Brad Knowles it can't be overstated how well the lad has done to recover from that horrific injury. I saw the incident at Batley and I wouldn't like to see owt like that again. Should he be given another contract at Fax? The answer to that is only if he would improve our squad for next season, no other reason and I don't know if he would as i've hardly ever seen him play. Up The Fax! The Grove, shuddersfield. Oakham Citra 4.2% Mmm!

I enjoyed this afternoon. We were not out played by Fev and it should give them something to think about it we beat York. Should have been draw at least with Fev’s conversion missing but being given. Keeping them nilled was a major aspect of our game well done the lads. I felt Keyes had a bad kicking game from hand but Gwaza had great game and should have been given MOM.

Yeah thought it was a good game between two pretty even sides. We started well before Fev hit their purple patch and still managed to claw our way in to the game. It did highlight the worry that Fev could blow us off the park if they get on a roll and we conceded some very soft tries but it also showed that if we are still close to them after 60 minutes they will run out of steam and we can have a great chance of beating them.

I want to see Fev's 4th try again, obviously the conversion missed but the try itself looked like obstruction to start with and then double movement but you never know after just one view. I think the ref performance was a bit sketchy and really didn't favor either team but did contribute to a bit of a stop start game with seemingly random stuff punished and then later ignored. I think there is a chance that Fev could have an issue with possible bans on a couple of late hits especially the one on JWH that lead to the McComb try but again its pretty random what gets reported and what doesn't so we will wait and see.

I saw nothing yesterday that suggested we are not capable of beating them at theirs but we have York first up and after that big win they will be up for it. Id rather go in to the game next week after a tough match over putting 70 points on someone.

As for yesterdays game i thought it showed where both sides strengths are fev are a big side across the park. moors was a real handful in that first half and both there wingers carried the ball back strong and took some pulling down it would of helped if keyes didn't keep kicking down briscoe throat. And to be fair to fev there forwards showed some good ball movement and interplay which caused us problems. And for us we moved the ball about to try and tire out there forwards something that you don't get the benefits of straight away but you could see in the last 20 that most of there players where not carrying the ball with the same impact as they where earlier in the game and they also started to fall off some tackles you would expect them to make and i thought we looked at that point the fitter side. overall i think a draw would of been a fair result and if we meet again in a couple of weeks i think they will try to blow us off the park in the first half but if we can hang on in there and take the game to the wire we have a good chance of winning . As for york in the playoffs with all due respect to them i would be very disappointed if we did not beat them i would expect a tough game but i think we have to much fire power for them and that will tell over the 80 minutes.

Considering the "dead rubber" nature of the game it was a full on encounter that lacked nothing in intensity and commitment.

I hadn't seen much of Fev lately and it was a reminder of their size in the pack which in the early exchanges they used that to their advantage and there was no surprise that they got some good ball and points of the back of it, outside of that Luke Briscoe was outstanding for them and Lineham not far behind with likewise Salty for us.

Where I thought we looked stronger was on the inter change with Gwaze having some impact the longer the game went on, Lockwood and Cuthbertson have been top players for a long time but I think the years are catching up and it will be interesting to see if they are in the playoff 17.

As Grix has been saying, against the top 2 if we can stay in the game and with Tangata, Barber and Walmsley to come in and add to the energy and running game which was a bit off yesterday this will be is our best chance against them if we can get passed York.

Always difficult to get a compliment from anyone featherstone related but here’s the Brian Mac interview https://twitter.com/fevroversrlfc/statu ... xWtqeXV0kg

Always difficult to get a compliment from anyone featherstone related but here’s the Brian Mac interview https://twitter.com/fevroversrlfc/statu ... xWtqeXV0kg

Quote ="Listenup94"Always difficult to get a compliment from anyone featherstone related but here’s the Brian Mac interview https://twitter.com/fevroversrlfc/statu ... xWtqeXV0kg'" Condescending. Basically he's saying his team weren't at their best but they have come through it and still won. Its all mind games and if we beat York we will see what pans out in the game that really matters. Up The Fax!

Quote ="Listenup94"Always difficult to get a compliment from anyone featherstone related but here’s the Brian Mac interview https://twitter.com/fevroversrlfc/statu ... xWtqeXV0kg'" Condescending. Basically he's saying his team weren't at their best but they have come through it and still won. Its all mind games and if we beat York we will see what pans out in the game that really matters. Up The Fax!

Dear me, you'd have to be a really sensitive soul to be upset at anything he said there. He's very complimentary about Fax, but he's not allowed to say that we weren't at our best (which most Rovers fans would agree with) in an interview for RoversTV just in case some sensitive Halifax fan is listening in and decides to take offence?

No offence taken by me. As I said, it's all mind games. P.S. Don't forget what he said whilst he was at Toronto.

As a fax fan I read it as , he couldn’t work out if fev looked slow n tired because of fax or because they underperformed and he would look at it again but certainly gave credit to Grix and how well drilled we were , macdermott is indeed a marmite character but I think in this instance from a fev point of view he’s spot on .

Fev have not been great the back end of the season so maybe this is the best they will get at this point. Brian Mc must be a little worried as to why Fev looked so tired and he mentions that a couple of times. makes for an intriguing next game if we manage to get past York.