Marshall thinks Fax can pass French test

Halifax visit Toulouse on Saturday aiming to leapfrog over the rivals into the Middle 8s.

The teams are level on points with three games of the regular season to play and Halifax boss Richard Marshall admits it’s an important weekend for both clubs.

“We’ve put ourselves in a position where we’re certainly in the frame and to be where we are at this stage of the season is fantastic for us,” he said.

“We’re going to have to take our chances this week, we can’t afford to miss out on those two or three opportunities we did against Bradford.

“Toulouse are a very good team – they’ve got some good, attacking players that can score out of nothing, so our defence will have to be solid.

“Sylvain (Houles) is a great coach and he’s done a wonderful job so far and it’s important for the game that our division is competitive and goes right down to the wire.

“We’ve had some great games against them already this season – it was a narrow loss at our place and we didn’t do ourselves justice at the Summer Bash. That first half at Blackpool killed us and that’s something we’ll speak about this week.

“We’re nursing a couple of bumps and bruises, but I know that everyone that gets on the place to France will be 100 percent ready to win.

“Hopefully we’ll have a bit more energy than them because we have to get the win – it might be ugly but we’ll take an ugly win.

“Whoever wins this game is probably in the driving seat, so let’s hope that’s us on Saturday evening.”