Halifax Panthers suffer defeat in the Scott Grix testimonial game against Wakefield Trinity

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Halifax Panthers got their pre-season underway at the Shay Stadium with the Scott Grix testimonial game against his former club Wakefield Trinity.

It was not meant to be for the Panthers as the Super League outfit proved just too strong for the Championship side with Trinity running out 52-24 victors.

Halifax signed 11 new players in the off-season and nine of those were making their debuts in this game. Some timing issues and forced plays showed signs of this in parts.  

The Panthers drew first blood as Corey Aston raced 40 metres following an impressive one-on-one ball steal to score underneath the posts with a Joe Keyes conversion taking the Panthers 6-0 up four minutes into the game.

The lead was short-lived as Liam Hood scooted from acting half and burrowed his way over the line as Bradley Walker made the conversion to level up the score for Wakefield.

A barrage of tries in quick succession from Wakefield saw the score quickly open up. 

Halifax went down to 12 men following the sin-binning of Jacob Fairbank due to a late hit on kicker Edward Battye. Wakefield took full advantage with Jai Whitbred crashing in under the post for his first of two tries.

The hosts clawed back a try with Ben Tibbs scoring in the corner after a looping pass from Keyes, with the ball fumbling its way through the hands of a Wakefield player aiming for the interception.

Trinity continued to turn the screw up to the half-time whistle with tries from Jacob Miller, Tom Lineham and Max Jowitt. The visitors went into the changing rooms at the break with a massive 34-12 lead.

The start of the second half saw Halifax with all of the possession and pressure which eventually saw Elliott Morris crash under the post following some majestic orchestrating from scrum-half and Man of the Match, Joe Keyes.

The Panthers managed to fight their way back into the game to bring the scoreline to a difference of just 10 points with tries from Morris and Keyes. 

Fatigue took hold towards the end of the game as Halifax started to struggle to keep up with the pace which lead to some gaps appearing in the defensive line. 

As the cold winter air in West Yorkshire drew in, Wakefield remained red hot on the points and capitalised on a tired Halifax squad and continued to rack up the points right until the final whistle. 

This game had everything you would expect from a pre-season friendly with big hits, disjointed plays, fatigue, stand out performances and plenty of points the coaches will want to work on for the season ahead.

Prost International caught up with the man of the moment Scott Grix after the game to hear his thoughts on the game and his retirement.

“It only dawned on me on Friday, with how busy we’ve been and training everybody as normal, Friday night I thought I’ve got to actually play a game in a couple of days!

“I missed it immensely if i’m honest, I probably struggled a little bit in terms of I think I could play forever, I’d like to play forever, retirement was the right thing to do at the time. So to get out and get amongst it a little was great. If it were up to me, I’d be Peter Pan and play forever.

When asked about the temptation to play again, Grix was determined to get out there and would love to play again.

“It depends on what Simon [Grix] says, but I think we’ve done the retirement thing and put that to bed a bit, I’m pretty competitive so it was good to be around the boys today”

Looking ahead to 2022, Grix believes that the recruitment during pre-season will put the Panthers in a strong, competitive position to push on.

“We’ve recruited very well, for the amount of people we’ve brought in, the cohesion has picked up a lot quicker then we thought it would.

“It may need a few more weeks to get in there but for us internally we’ve got our own thoughts on where we’ll finish, what we’ll do and what we’ll strive to do, but in general, to get where we need to be we needed a bigger squad which is why we got it.

“We could’ve gone with a 23-man squad maybe me pulling my boots on again but the competition is the main thing, we’ve got enough players to make it competitive all the time rather than anybody being a shoe in so i’m looking forward to see how that progresses.

“You travel to work with your main rival for your position, it’s a weird one, you’re best mates but they also want your spot as well so its good”

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