Featherstone Rovers v Halifax Panthers: Hall pushing for favourites to realise promotion potential

When they host Halifax Panthers in the Championship semi-final, they are heavy favourites to progress and take a step closer towards potential promotion to Super League.

Featherstone, who won the 1895 Cup at Wembley in July, have only lost one of their 21 league games this term and that was against League Leaders’ Shield victors Toulouse Olympique.

They also vanquished part-timers Halifax 54-22 at Post Office Road just four weeks ago having invested heavily in their squad for 2021.

Their whole season is now on the line in the 80 minutes ahead but full-back Hall, who won Championship Player of the Year this week, said: “I’m pretty laid-back. I won’t be thinking about it that way. I’ll just want to go and play my best for the team which everyone can do.

“If we all play to our potential, we can come out on top. Halifax will throw everything at us. But a few weeks ago we put 50 points on them and, to be honest, we were pretty disappointed after the game, weirdly enough.

“There are a few wrongs we need to make right ourselves going into this. We’re definitely looking forward to it.”

Hall, who was man-of-the-match in their Wembley win over York City Knights and has scored 26 tries in the league this term, added: “Looking around at pre-season, there was definitely potential for doing something special.

“Luckily, we got to go to Wembley and win there with quite a few players who missed out due to Covid.

“Hopefully that’s past now. There’s a couple of lads who won’t be in the squad due to injury like Brad Day and James Harrison which is a massive blow but we’ve still got a good squad together to hopefully be competing towards that Million Pound Game next week.

“But we just need to get over Halifax and then we’ll look forward to that.”

Halifax defeated in-form Whitehaven 24-20 to reach the semi-finals but have not beaten Featherstone sincxe 2018.

Hall, 33, knows they remain dangerous.

“It’s a semi-final; all bets are off,” he added.

“We just have to do our best. We’ve had a week off and, without being able to play last week, had a bit of an indoor training game between ourselves as best.

“We watched the play-offs last weekend and there were no big scores in either. Both went the full 80 minutes and that’s what we need to be prepared to do.

“We’re sitting in second at the moment and hopefully - come the end of the Million Pound Game - we’re lifting that trophy.”