No lack of team spirit at Halifax, says Finn

Halifax Panthers travel to Featherstone Rovers for a West Yorkshire derby on Sunday (kick off 3pm), with Liam Finn’s men hoping to avoid a fourth successive defeat in the Betfred Championship, writes Adam Cheshire.

Widnes Vikings, Sheffield Eagles and, more recently, Swinton Lions have all been victorious against a Panthers side which has scored just 26 points across those three games, while conceding 114.

And although it may seem a daunting task against a Featherstone outfit which has won their own previous three league outings against Doncaster, Widnes and Whitehaven, Finn has insisted there isn’t a “lack of effort or togetherness” within his squad.

He said: “We keep working hard and we keep trying to improve.

"When you’re struggling and losing games confidence is an issue but there isn’t a lack of effort, there is no lack of togetherness.

"There are fix-ups, clearly, rugbywise, but we just need to make sure we keep chipping away.

“At the minute, I couldn’t care less who we are playing against. We just want to keep improving and keep trying to get better and see if we can get ourselves out of what we are in at the minute.

“As you can see from other results, it is a tough competition as we all know.”

Finn added: "There are some teams doing it tough, there are some teams flying. I’m sure in another 10 to 12 weeks there will be other teams struggling that were flying and viceversa.

“It’s one of those competitions and we know we just need to keep ourselves in the mix somehow.”

He added: “We have got to batten down the hatches and stick together and keep trying to play what you want to play.

“We did that (against Swinton). There were improvements.

"There were a lot of them and it will be worth it when we turn the corner, regardless of who is with us. When we turn the corner we will know we have put the work in and that it’s been coming.”

He added: “We will have to dig a win out that’s not awfully pretty and go from there.”