12 February 2023

Fresh from a comfortable victory away to Keighley earlier in the week, Sean Long made only one change from that game, Jack Bussey returned from illness to replace Luke Cooper in the seventeen man squad. Rovers took an early lead, Chris Hankinson forcing his way through the Fax defence, quickly followed by another from Gadwin Springer inside the opening ten minutes. Tries from Matty Wildie and Caleb Aekins were answered briefly by a try from Lachlan Walmsley who capitalised on an overlap gifted by the sin binning of McKenzie Yei shortly before the break.

Rovers started the second half with the same gusto as the first, opting to take two points from an early penalty, quickly followed by a second try for Chris Hankinson.   Riley Dean made sure to get his name on the scoresheet, the halfback using all his size to power through the Fax defence. Walmsley scored his second of the game just inside the hour mark, Briscoe misjudging the bounce of the ball allowing the Scottish international to capitalise. Connor Jones chased down a superbly weighted kick from Jonathon Ford, the Halifax fullback making a hash of the collection to allow Jones to force his way through to pounce on the loose ball. Rovers had perhaps put the cue on the rack which allowed Woodburn-Hall to carve his way through for a score.  Gareth Gale, who’d been in fine form all afternoon collected Rovers’ final try of the afternoon before Woodburn-Hall snatched a late conciliation. Reflecting on the game, Head Coach Sean Long was impressed with his side’s performance; “I’m very pleased with the win, I think we played well and were always in control, we’re perhaps a bit guilty of allowing a couple of soft tries towards the end of the game which definitely gives us something to work on going forward.”