Championship Review – Round 10
A traumatic week ended with a much-needed lift for Halifax who put the disruption caused by the resignation of football manager Martin Hall behind them with a 46-24 home victory against defending champions Barrow.
Hall quit in the aftermath of Halifax’s disqualification from the Carnegie Challenge Cup for fielding an ineligible player in the fourth round and head coach Matt Calland was temporarily suspended during an internal inquiry.
With Calland reinstated, Halifax hit their straps with an authoritative second half display to climb above the Cumbrians into third place in the Championship.
Eight tries, all from different scorers, plus seven goals from the boot of Lee Paterson, were just reward for Halifax’s enterprise in attack.
Barrow scored four tries of their own through Andy Ballard, Richard Fletcher, Ned Catic and Chris Young but were always second best.
Four tries from John Campbell helped Batley Bulldogs to a thumping 54-6 victory over Whitehaven at Mount Pleasant where the home side warmed up for next week’s Carnegie Challenge Cup tie in style.
The Bulldogs play Swinton in a fifth round tie on Wednesday and will cross the Pennines in confident mood after rattling up their biggest Co-operative Championship win of the season.
Campbell scored two tries in each half during a one-sides contest and the only consolation for the visitors was that they scored the opening try, Graeme Mattinson touching down after four minutes.
However after that it was one-way traffic all the way as Batley romped into a 30-6 lead by the interval with Campbell’s first two tries, a brace from Danny Maun and others by Chris Buttery and Paul Handforth.
After the break Campbell pounced twice more, Maun completed his hat-trick and Byron Smith grabbed a try to complete the win.
On Saturday, Craig Cook claimed a hat-trick of tries for Sheffield Eagles in a 38-24 victory over Toulouse Olympique.
The Eagles added further tries through Richie Barnett, Alex Rowe, Tangi Ropati and Aaron Groom to deny opponents who trailed just 16-12 at the interval.
