06 June 2015

Halifax avenged their early season defeat at the Shay with an outstanding victory which saw them leapfrog their rivals in the race for an all important top 4 spot. Tommy Saxton opened the scoring for Fax, courtesy of Murrell’s aerial kick which gave Dane Manning the time to get above Jy Hitchcox and offload to Steve Tyrer, but Rovers were right back in it when Will Sharp pounced on Gareth Moore’s in-goal grubber. Then four consecutive penalties against them led to their line coming under siege for Craven to open the gate with a long pass to Tyrer who fed Saxton once again. Then came the yellow card, which referee Chris Kendall explained was to the first offender after a team warning, and the floodgates opened. Fax came downfield and Murrell’s diagonal kick behind the defence was missed by Gareth Potts and Hitchcox, only for Potts to re-gather and touch down. Saxton then completed his hat-trick courtesy of an identical Craven-Tyrer move before Jamie Cording’s outstanding try saving tackle on Ben Johnston was wasted as the ball was moved left and right for Potts to score again.

The game looked over at the break, and soon after the restart Craven came close to scoring with a 50 metre break of extreme pace, but the home side, back to a full complement of thirteen, held firm and hauled themselves back into the contest. First Alex Foster stepped, twisted and barged his way over before Moore picked up his own kick to score after Cording’s challenge on Saltonstall worked the ball loose. With the deficit down to ten, the game looked back on with more than twenty remaining, but Craven’s pace came to the fore as Tyrer picked up a loose ball and gave him a 40 metre race to the line. When Johnston’s grubber was pounced upon by Tyrer the margin was restored and Fax were home and dry. In the closing stages Hardman scored for Rovers after Cording’s pick up from a spilled ball, Potts completed his hat-trick courtesy of Ben Heaton’s offload out of the back of his hand, and Craven sealed an outstanding display with another 40 metre effort off Cahalane’s midfield break.