Grix confirms hunt for Carlile’s replacement is on after Fax beat York

HALIFAX COACH Simon Grix confirmed he will look for a permanent replacement for retired hooker Keal Carlile after his side grabbed a morale-boosting Championship win over York.

Fax banished the uncertainty of what Grix described as a “messy” week with a comprehensive 28-4 success, winger Shaun Robinson scoring twice as the Knights left town winless in the league.

Grix found out on Thursday that Carlile, a key close-season signing, had no choice but to retire at the age of 29 after a recurrence of the heart condition that almost ended his career a decade ago.

And while young Welshman Curtis Davies stepped into the 17 against the Knights, Grix believes reinforcements are required.

“Keal’s fitted in brilliantly and, taking the personal stuff out of it, it’s a tough one for the team because he’s a quality nine who’s been helping to improve the other nines,” said Grix.

“We’ll look for a replacement.

Those places in the spine - one, six, seven, nine - are where you need your own players, ideally.

“A few names have been mentioned already and we’ll be proactive and have a good look round.

“We’ll see what we can afford as well, it’s not like we’re going to the supermarket and picking out whatever we want.

“It’s been a tough week; Keal, Tom Gilmore not making it with his hamstring, not really performing the previous three weeks, laying down that challenge to our middles about how they needed to play.

“We’re not a bad team now and we weren’t a bad team when we were losing those two games by two points.

“People want to call out the negatives, which is human nature, but there has been positive stuff going on in patches.

“Today, we just strung that together for long periods.

“What we haven’t been doing, we did.

“Territorially, we spent a reasonable amount of time down their end.

“It’s great to get a win but no one’s thinking we’ve cracked it.”

Grix fielded one dual-registered Huddersfield player, young forward Sam Hewitt, and admitted it would have been more in the aftermath of last week’s loss to Sheffield if the Giants had not been indirectly hit by the ongoing furore surrounding coronavirus.

“Huddersfield had a few days off and few of them went away to Tenerife,” said Grix, who also watched his brother, Scott, score his 150th career try against the Knights.

“They’re not ill, but they’ve had to follow protocols when they got back, which meant they couldn’t train.

“Luckily for some of those lads who maybe didn’t deserve to play after last week, they’ve all had a decent crack and maybe proved something to themselves, each other and me.

“It’s all worked out okay, but it’s been a messy week.”