Teenagers show the way as Halifax take control

A trio of Halifax teenagers helped the Blue Sox to an impressive 36-16 win over Castleford yesterday. Lee Greenwood scored two tries, the first after a length-of-the-pitch run, and Danny Tickle and Danny Halliwell also touched down for Halifax, who had the game sewn up at half-time when they led 24-6.

A trio of Halifax teenagers helped the Blue Sox to an impressive 36-16 win over Castleford yesterday. Lee Greenwood scored two tries, the first after a length-of-the-pitch run, and Danny Tickle and Danny Halliwell also touched down for Halifax, who had the game sewn up at half-time when they led 24-6.

Greenwood crossed the line for the first time on 20 minutes when Barrie-Jon Mather dropped Brad Davis' huge punt into the right-hand corner for the youngster to scoop up and race the full length of the pitch to score. Then Andrew Dunemann linked with Damian Gibson to send Greenwood through on the left for his second.

Tickle had opened the home side's account earlier when he collected Dunemann's looping pass from the centre to glide through. Substitute Danny Halliwell had the final say when he reached over on the right to round off the scoring.

The Tigers mounted a brief fightback when and Jon Wells scored tries but the Blue Sox regained their stranglehold and took their try tally to seven.

Halifax's assistant coach, Steve Linnane, hailed the performance of his young stars. He said: "The players performed very well today, and the youngsters did especially well. We try to start each week with as much power, speed and aggression as possible - and in the first 20 minutes we didn't make a mistake. We simply blew Castleford away at the beginning of the game."

His opposite number, Stuart Raper, was downcast after his side had failed to clinch a top-five berth. He said: "We were beaten by a better side, and I'm sure Gary Mercer's disappointed that they don't play like that every week.

"We were missing players - but that is no excuse. Andrew Dunemann and Daryl Cardiss just took advantage of the wide pitch."

Hull, meanwhile, beat Huddersfield-Sheffield 34-18 yesterday to end a run of three straight defeats. The win kept alive their hopes of finishing sixth.

Once again Hull were depleted, with 10 of their senior players missing, but they still proved too strong for Huddersfield-Sheffield.

The skipper Tony Grimaldi was the architect behind Hull's three tries in the first half which broke Huddersfield-Sheffield's resistance.

Excellent running and superb passing opened the defence for Steve Collins to score his 16th try of the season, and for Will Robinson and Richard Fletcher to also score.

The sure boot of the winger Ian Herron added the vital extras and once again Huddersfield-Sheffield were left with a mountain to climb.

They showed more spirit in the second half, but only after another Herron goal and a superb 70 meters try from teenage star Richard Horne.

Danny Russell and Steve Molloy scored for the visitors, with Gene Ngamu adding the goals, but Hull had the final say as Brian Carney ran 70 metres for the final touchdown.

Huddersfield-Sheffield's assistant coach, Phil Veivers, said: "We lacked aggression and once again left ourselves with a mountain to climb. We only seem to play when the game looks out of our hands and that's not good enough."

Veivers admitted he was disappointed, especially as the in-coming coach, Tony Smith, had told the players that there were no guarantees for contracts next season.

Veivers added: "With that sort of incentive you would expect better."

The Hull coach, Shaun McRae, was a lot happier, however, and said: "It's good to end a losing a run and I felt, with the inexperience we had on the field, we controlled the game well. We got a lot more positives out of this game and I am sure that the youngsters will have gained another invaluable lesson."