Fylde travel with a mission to Ovenden Park to take on National Three (North) bottom club Halifax on Saturday (changed ko time of 14.00). Not only are the 5th placed  Lancastrians looking for their first away win of the season to put pressure on leaders Leicester Lions but they have yet to beat ‘Fax in the four league occasions in which they’ve played each other to date. In 2003/4 the Yorkshire club won by 33-20 at the Woodlands and 32-12 at home. The following season, which saw ‘Fax winning National Three (North) at a canter, there was more of the same – 39-12 at Ovenden Park and 26-10 at the Woodlands.

Fylde vice-captain & scrum-half Craig Aikman spent a season and a half at ‘Fax and was the club's player of the 2006/7 season before moving to the Woodlands in January. Despite his affections for his old club he’ll be anxious to be part of a winning Fylde side on this occasion.

The glorious 2004/5 season was the high point of Halifax’s long climb up the league system. Subsequently they had three seasons of struggle in National Two before suffering inevitable relegation at the end of last season. When a Club goes through a period like this, two wins and 24 defeats during the last campaign, it generally takes a big effort to turn matters around. With a number of players leaving last season, ‘Fax coach Rhys Morgan has had a difficult job building a confident squad who can get back on the winning track. Morgan, who took over from long serving Kevin McCallion last season, has had to watch his charges sink to the bottom of the N3N table, losing all four league matches to date, scoring 39 points and conceding 144.

Halifax have long had plans to move away from Ovenden Park and develop a new ground elsewhere in the town but these haven’t come to fruition as yet. Another major difficulty on the pitch in recent seasons is the lack of a 2nd team or, indeed , a Colts structure. Without these there is no natural development route for players to progress through the youth system and move into 1st team selection contention. And ‘Fax are in the midst of a very competitive area for players let alone the challenges posed by being in a rugby league heartland.

Nevertheless, ‘Fax have an able squad that is, according to forwards coach Dave Harrison, lacking confidence. Harrison believes the players have to banish the ghosts of last season’s campaign if they are to start moving forward.

"We are just not playing as a team and this is becoming really frustrating," he told the Halifax Courier. "We give them patterns to play to during training and then come Saturday, due to a lack of confidence, fatigue or whatever, they are going outside of those parameters. As a result we are doing things we haven't worked on and that leads to us making mistakes, knocking on and losing the ball in contact.”

Star summer signing was centre Craig Emmerson who spent the 2007/8 season at neighbours Morley. The 36-year-old started at Halifax at the age of 16 and had a spell in the top flight with Leeds Tykes as well as turning out for Harlequins, Gloucester and West Hartlepool. Another returner is flanker Ian Spence who also played for Morley last season.

Other leading players include experienced prop Adam Blades, flanker Richard Brown and, in the backline, fullback Danny McGee, dual code centre James Enderby, winger Oli Marns & fly-half Iain Gordon.

Newcomers for the 2008/9 season include former Cleckheaton and Wakefield players Steve Worsley (hooker) and Dominic Castle (scrum-half), Yorkshire prop Paul Turner (Otley) and fellow highly experienced prop Jim Lamptey (ex-Cleckheaton, Wakefield & Newbury). Morgan has also used skipper Danny McGee's contacts at Sale Academy to capture lock Josh Cammis.

There’s much love for the Club from its backbone of players. This is typified by former Rotherham winger Gareth Brear who lives in Lichfield but is happy to make a 280-mile round trip twice a week for training and for Saturday home games. It is an incredible effort by anybody's standards

Departing players include goal kicking full back and leading points scorer last season, Joe Knowles (to Waterloo), hooker Will Kay (to Otley) and flanker Gareth Lewis (to Manchester).

For a preview of the game in the Halifax Courier, click here.

The provisional Halifax team is:

15 Danny McGee; 14 Gareth Brear, 13 Craig Emmerson, 12 James Endersby, 11 Olli Marns; 10 Iain Gordon, 9 Dominic Castle; 1 Adam Blades, 2 Steve Worsley, 3 Paul Turner, 4 Josh Cammis, 5 Nic Corrigan, 6 Dominic Moon, 7 Frazer Hall, 8 Richard Brown.

Replacements: 16 Rob Townend, 17 Andy Goodwin, 18 Ian Spence, 19 Tom Whitehead, 20 Craig Barker.

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Fylde’s Director of Rugby Mark Nelson certainly won’t be taking anything for granted on Saturday. “Halifax have a number of good players with experience of National Two level rugby, or above, and they’ll go all out to beat us” he said.

Reflecting on his side’s first four games of the season he said: “We’ve played four very good teams so far. We were a minute away from beating league leaders Leicester Lions on their home turf and had a great chance to beat Nuneaton too. But we’ve secured 13 league points and sit in 5th place in the division. We’ve always looked capable of scoring plenty of points although our defence has been lacking on occasions. We’re addressing this and have to be more organised.

“Yet we’ve still to let opponents score four or more tries against us and, crucially, our discipline was much better against the Students. We gave away just six penalties. That’s how we must continue.”

Mike Waywell misses out once more through injury. Matt Hughes comes in on the right wing replacing Nick Royle who will be turning out for Sale Sharks in the EDF Cup game against Cardiff Blues at Edgeley Park. Mark Nelson said:"Matt Hughes has done extremely well since rejoining the club half way through last season. He's very quick and won't let the side down at Halifax. His selection shows that we are keen to recognise players who do well in the Wanderers. The 2nd team is a vital part of our squad system."

This won't be Hughes' 1st team debut. He made three starting appearances and two as a replacement in his first spell at the Club in the 2004/5 season, scoring a couple of tries.

The rest of the side is unchanged:

15 Martin Wallwork; 14 Matt Hughes, 13 Tom Albinson, 12 Neil Hunter, 11 Oliver Brennand; 10 Steve Nutt, 9 Craig Aikman; 1 Sam Simpson, 2 Alan Holmes, 3 Darren Clark, 4 Nick King, 5 Roger Banks, 6 Dan Bowman, 7 Dave Wilks, 8 Sam Beaumont.

Replacements: 16 Andrew Irving, 17 Chris Tyms, 18 Dan Palmer, 19 Grant Ferguson, 20 David Wiseman.