Halifax centre Steve Tyrer has admitted they’re in a rut following their latest Championship defeat.
Fax went down 24-18 to local rivals Featherstone on Sunday, which was their fifth straight league defeat.
It’s been a month since their last win, which actually came in their memorable Challenge Cup quarter-final victory over Bradford.
Their run of form has seen any hopes of making the play-offs eradicated. Despite being largely tipped to compete at the top end of the table ahead of the season, they are currently eighth in the Championship and eight points off the top five.
Tyrer, who has scored 10 tries in 23 games this season, conceded that they have simply not been good enough.
“In the past teams have been playing Halifax and known they were in for a tough game, but it’s not been like that this year and that’s something that hurts me to say.
“There have been seasons in the past where Halifax have been out of it and then they’ve come along and won five games in a row. But I don’t think we’re that same team at the minute.
“It kills me to say that, but thinking about the play-offs isn’t realistic at the moment.
“We’ve got to think about getting some momentum, getting some wins. It absolutely kills me to accept and say something like that, that we can’t make the play-offs, but it can’t be in our minds at the minute.”
The centre, who is the club’s second all-time leading points scorer, was quick to jump to the defence of coach Simon Grix, who took over from Richard Marshall midway through the season.
“He’s come in and been absolutely fantastic,” he said.
“It’s us letting him down at the minute, we’re not doing it for him at the moment and it was the same for Richard (Marshall).
“He gives it out when it needs to be given out, which at the minute is quite a lot. He knows the game so well, his man management has been good, if you ain’t good enough he tells you, it doesn’t matter that he’s your mate.
“He’ll probably learn more from this spell we’re in than any other coaching spell he’ll have, so that’s probably a positive for him.
“It all comes down to us, there are 13 blokes on the field and the 13 blokes aren’t doing it.”
