HALIFAX will be on guard for a potential upset when they begin the defence of their 1895 Cup title.
The Panthers beat Batley 12-10 in a nail-biting decider at Wembley last season, and travel to Oldham this Sunday for the most eye-catching fixture of the opening round of group-stage games in a new-format competition.
Big-spending Oldham provide a dangerous first game of the season and hooker Adam O’Brien, who featured off the bench in last season’s 1895 Cup final while on loan from Huddersfield and has since signed permanently for Halifax, is well aware of the threat.
“We’re not thinking of it as a warm-up game or friendly – we’re in a cup competition and that is a cup game,” he said.
“Really we’ve only got two chances. If we lose our group fixtures we’re out of it and that’s it done.
“On paper Oldham and Rochdale (who Halifax play the following Sunday, February 4) are League One sides, but they both have some really good players in their squads so they are both going to be really good contests for us.
“We certainly won’t rock up to those games thinking of them as League One sides so we should win; it doesn’t work like that in Rugby League.
“It often comes down to whoever turns up on the day with the best attitude and will to win. So that’s what we need to do – turn up with the best attitude we can have and hopefully we’ll get the results. If we’re on our game we know we can do it.
“It’s not ideal that we don’t have a home game or even a game in Yorkshire, but that’s no excuse. At the end of the day, all we can do is control what we can control.
“We have to go to Oldham and Rochdale, perform and do what we need to do to get the wins.
“It is a privilege to be in this Cup and the way it is set up this year. It’s great that it’s more of a competition in its own right.
“Winning it last year was a massive honour for the club and players, and it would be unbelievable to do that again.
“Walking out at Wembley again is in the back of all our minds and I don’t see why we can’t put ourselves in the position to do it again.”
*Read more from Adam O’Brien, and see a full group-by-group preview to the 1895 Cup, in the next issue of Rugby League World, out this week and available to pre-order now at totalrl.com/shop.
