Columnist

It wasn’t a remarkable or surprising result in what was a frankly disappointing season.

But Hull FC’s 60-10 victory at the Shay on

Friday, May 30, 2003 (brought back to mind following the recent friendly between the two sides at the same venue) was remarkable in one sense.

Referee Colin Morris managed to go the entire 80 minutes without awarding a single penalty to either side.

For much of the first part of the 2003 season Halifax had been reasonably competitive in Super League whilst only managing to record one victory.

But the week before this particular game they had just lost heavily at Wigan and, although they only lost by two points at Huddersfield in early June, the season just degenerated thereafter into a series of losses where they were both outmuscled and outplayed.

The club had been given a kicking on the day before the Hull game when the RFL took the only two points off them that they had earned so far (an opening day success at London) as punishment for alleged salary cap infringements the previous year.

It was therefore a pretty demoralised team which took that field that evening; Lee Finnerty, Lee Greenwood, Ryan Clayton, Andrew Frew, loanee debutant John Kirkpatrick from St Helens, Dane Dorahy, Sean Penkywicz, Andy Hobson, Johnny Lawless, Chris Birchall, Heath Cruckshank, Andrew Brocklehurst and Liam

Finn with Paul Davidson, Anthony Seuseu, Jaymes Chapman and Chris Norman starting on the substitutes bench.

Former Fax star Chris Chester started at loose forward for Hull.

It was 30-0 at half-time although Frew and Lawless crossed for tries after the break and Dorahy added a goal as some consolation.

The big talking point afterwards though was Morris’s restraint with the whistle!