VETERAN wingman Damian Gibson believes Matt Calland's half time riot act at Featherstone could represent a turning point in Halifax's season.
Calland took his side into the dressing rooms trailing 32-24 after a first half performance he branded as "disgraceful", but watched them dominate in the second stanza to run out 64-44 winners.
The former Rovers centre pulled no punches in the team talk, admitting afterwards he had given his players "a roasting".
And Gibson, who bagged a second half treble at Post Office Road, confirmed Calland had let rip.
"There were certainly some harsh words spoken at half time," said Gibson.
"Matt is usually a coach who keeps his cool but he made it pretty clear he wasn't happy.
"When someone like Matt blows up, you know he has a good reason to and it maybe carries a bit more impact because of that.
"I think it did the job for us in the second half because we came out a totally different team.
"Hopefully, it has helped us turn a bit of a corner."
Fax now have a weekend off before their play off opener against sixth-placed Widnes, and Gibson admits they need to use every minute if they are to keep their National League One Grand Final dreams alive.
"Featherstone ran over the top of us in the first half, we just didn't seem interested," he admitted.
"It was 'we score, you score', there wasn't much defending going on.
"We had been practising goal line defence all week and everything we had practised we pretty much just threw away and did our own thing.
"It's maybe what we need to give us a boot up the behind and show us how much work we have to do.
"We have two weeks to rectify it now and we'll be working hard.
"We've got some time to turn it round and I'm sure we will."
THE HALIFAX RLFC Supporters Trust Player of the Season awards take place at the Irish Club tomorrow night.
The event starts at 7.30 and admission is free.
The full article contains 374 words and appears in Evening Courier newspaper.
