The Blues Ox

You know that Dewsbury are not going to have anything to play for after about 4 games of the season but it doesn't stop you turning up does it?

He might be happy at this stage in his career to play a similar role to what Aston/Wood have done this season and in that sense hes probably as decent as anybody we will find who is happy to accept he won't be first choice.

Its going to be tight for those last 3 places. York will get 2 wins while Batley will lose to Leigh but barrow face a tricky trip to London to settle 4th/5th.

Ryan King to Fax from Haven another rumor doing the rounds. Haven must hate us after these last 2 seasons.

Yeah good signing for them that. Would have liked him at Fax as back up to Moore but not to be and he probably wanted a regular starting spot which he will get at Bradford. Keighley making some good signings as well and look like they are poised to do well next season.

I were just having a quick count up but flash scores must have it wrong somewhere as it has Ritson as 22 tries from 24 games in the Championship after this weeks games but Walmsley has 24 tries from 19 so Ritson has been robbed of 3 tries somewhere along the line. For Fax I can't remember the last time we had a player who averaged more than a try a game in a season so it brings back some fond memories of some quality wingers we have had down the years.

Yeah I like the look of Kibula, certainly one of the few Bradford forwards that do run their weight and was a handful. Was hoping Walmsley could get a hatrick to tie it up at the top of the try scoring charts. Im not sure how many games Ritson has missed but Walmsley has missed a few so to be anywhere near is pretty good. Him and Ritson are certainly 2 of the stand out young talents in the Championship.

Must be at least that date as there is still 2 weeks of the season left and then the first round knock outs before the semis.

I just realised I predicted us to win by 22 as well in the predictions so I would have taken that pre match but I just think theactually margin between the teams was a lot wider than the scoreline suggests.

Ive honestly no clue, I don't even know if the playoffs start straight away the week after the regular season ends. I imagine they will decide in the next 3 or 4 weeks.

3rd place pretty much guarenteed for Fax now barring a miracle and with 2 games to spare which is an improvement on last season. Just 2 losses in the last 20 games we have to be delighted with and we can now start planning for the playoffs with the luxury of been able to be very selective what we do for the last 2 games of the season. As for todays game a little disappointed with the final score and the game on the whole. Bradford turned up to niggle and slow the game down at every opportunity which we expected but the game was really poorly officiated and I just feel like I wasted money turning up to see the referee rather than turn up to watch a game of rugby and its no surprise to me that he lost his spot in SL. I lost count of sin binnings during the game, it may have been 4, but all were for niggly things rather than foul play which just suggests that the ref needed to get a grip early doors. Fax probably need to cut out a few penalties and maybe a little over playing but the reality is that a fair margin for todays game would have been a lot closer to 40 or 50 than what it actually were.

*The Blues Ox wins tonights lottery. Goes out and signs a top 3 championship half back for his team. Welcome to Halifax Jordan Lilley.

The whole idea of that sort of tackle technique is so the defender can't move. Myler knew this and he was never getting a quick play the ball, I encourage anyone to try and lift a player from that position like Chris Hill is supposed to have done, it is really hard to get the leverage without trying really hard and you can see if you watch Chris Hill he is really not trying to lift him. Myler put himself in a dangerous position trying to win a penalty and if he injured himself doing it then he would have been to blame. Ian Watson is quite a calm bloke and he knew exactly what had gone on in that tackle.

FRIDAY 26th AUGUST York City Knights v Sheffield Eagles York by 8 SATURDAY 27TH AUGUST Featherstone Rovers v Workington Town Fev by 44 Newcastle Thunder v Barrow Raiders Barrow by 24 SUNDAY 28th AUGUST Halifax Panthers v Bradford Bulls Fax by 22 Leigh Centurions v Widnes Vikings Leigh by 48 Whitehaven v London Broncos London by 10

Its like a bulldozer tackle and in no way does Myler ever end up in that position without putting himself in it. He can't get any sort of quick play the ball from that position he were in and he likely knew that. Ive never seen someone attempt to get out of the tackle like that though and if he injured himself doing it then so be it.

Can't say ive seen his defence stand out as non existent, maybe it happened in the game I missed. He will probably get our player of the year and I wouldn't take another half back from our league in front of him.

Im not sure on the playoff format date wise, if we have our first play off game the week after the Fev game then its a no brainer to rotate the squad, if we have a week off I imagine it will be a full team. As long as we beat Bradford this week then we have a lot of options for the last 2 games which is not a bad position to be in. Im more confident than I were last season. The form table over the last 20 games suggests that we are the 2nd best team in the league and the reality is when we played Fev at theirs we had an awful bounce of a ball for one of Fev's trys and Jouffret pulled his hammy in a 2 on 1 situation which would have likely put the game to bed and would have left us with a chance of 2nd in the league. As mentioned before we are hitting the business end with a pretty much full strength, and fresh squad which is a great place to be in.

I wouldn't read too much in to that result, we had most of our pack missing due to suspension and injury. Touch wood we don't have that problem at the moment going in to the last few games of the season. In an ironic way the suspensions have actually helped us as it has given us the chance to rotate the squad and keep players fresh. Im quietly confident that we can go to Fev and turn them over if we make it that far, we should have beaten them earlier in the season and we look a much better team at this moment and certainly better than last season where we went over there with little hope at least this year we will go with genuine hopes of an upset.

Me neither, I don't think we would get within 30 points of Leigh. Our target has to be the scalp of Fev in the semi final and that would be a really good season for us. We look set up to be in a better position next season as well so the club is moving forward which Im happy with.

Its founded on the fact that in Keyes, Jouffret, Moore, and JWH, we have 4 players who are better in the positions that he plays and nothing more. Cover tackling not exactly the best quality I would look for in a half back. Honestly I would be gutted if we signed Lilley to take one of those players places which is unlikely seen as though they are all tied up for the future.

If Im honest the game I want to avoid is Batley, just something about them always makes it a tough game against them no matter the circumstances. York would obviously be the easiest game given their current form and to be honest Im not too fussed about playing Barrow, we have a bit of style clash with them as we both play very similar games and we have disposed of them pretty easily in both the games we have played against them. Nope unless Leigh have a total disaster but all the pressure is on them and it wouldn't be the first time that made a difference.

I can't wait if it does happen as I do not see anything between the two teams which compared to last season is a huge change where the last game was just a forgone conclusion. The positives for Fax, as I just mentioned on the Batley board, if you take out our horrible start then over the last 20 games of the season we are the 2nd form team in the league. Our performances as we have gone through the season are night and day away from our performance over at Post Office Road and I have said before its the best Fax team since 2010 where as I would have to question if Fev have got better since that day. The negatives for Fax, our bad start did seem to be a lot to do with conditions of grounds and as PH mentions size wise we do not really have the players to play those sorts of conditions and get on top of teams, we are built to be very mobile to get around the pitch and won't fatigue like the larger teams. The problem is by the time the playoffs come around we could very much be back to playing in those conditions and Keyes, Jouffret, and JWH don't look as electrifying running in treacle. There is always questions as to if its better to have a week off or to play right through but there looks to be a decent chance that Fax will face either Barrow or Batley in their first game which I would not expect to be easy in which case that might slightly favor Fev. The negatives for both teams are that Leigh are going to have a cake walk in their semi while these two teams would bash each other about if it were to happen which would not improve either teams chances in a final.

Very nice reading. I really like the 20 game form table as well. Funny we had some fans calling for Grix's head after our horrid start.

Will we see Warrington and Wakefield start to panic buy for next season, both must be pretty worried with how Leigh are looking for next year.

SL getting worried? I think in the interests of keeping the SL status quo when Leigh go up its in the best interests of the game if they remove their funding and spread it equally around the other SL teams.