30 May 2021

Featherstone Rovers extended their 100% winning run with a seventh consecutive win at The Shay in a hard fought victory over Halifax Panthers. The Panthers, buoyed by playing in front of their fans for the first time in over 14 months gave the Rovers one of the toughest games of the campaign so far.  The game remained scoreless until the 25th minute when Halifax capitalised on a penalty in front of the sticks to take a two point lead.  Ten minutes later, Rovers' persistent pressure finally paid dividends as Nu Brown crashed over on the back of a short pass.  Dane Chisholm converted to put Rovers into a narrow lead heading into the break. 

Rovers needed to strike early in the second half to take control of the game and that's exactly what they did.  Craig Hall intercepting a loose Halifax pass to run 80m and score under the sticks, a classic Craig Hall score with a trademark Chisholm conversion to add the extra two points. The arm wrestle continued for another ten minutes until Gareth Gale took the ball from dummy half to crash over from short range seemingly putting the game beyond Halifax,  An intervention from the referee six minutes later saw John Davies sent to the sin bin for a tackle on Halifax's Huddersfield loanee Oliver Russell, this shifted momentum to Halifax for a brief period in which they scored through Adam Tangata who was the recipient of a short pass from Gadwin Springer before spinning out of the tackle to fall over the whitewash to the score the try which was subsequently converted by Harris. 

Gareth Gale went over following a beautiful passage of play only to be denied by the touch judge, but he was just as heroic in defence as in attack, a sure pair of hands under the relentless high ball from Halifax.  Other stand out performances included passionate displays from Nu Brown and Dane Chisholm as well as sterling performances from Brad Day and James Lockwood. The game finished 8 - 16 in the favour of the Rovers but that was one of their toughest tests so far this season.