It had been bad enough that they had blundered by giving a free transfer to try machine Greg Austin the previous September.
The centre from Manly had top scored as Fax surged to promotion.
Financially strapped Rovers were then persuaded to sell utility back Dave Watson to Halifax for £25,000 in May 1991.
They desperately wanted to keep "Watto" despite his colourful off-field lifestyle but had to offload.
But when Fax came a sniffing again for winger Anthony Sullivan they put their collective feet down!
They asked for an astronomically high fee and then encouraged a bidding war between Halifax and St Helens.
The Knowsley Road club got remarkable service from Sullivan but always blamed Fax for inflating the asking price.
So it was back to plan B for the Thrum Hall board who were desperate to recruit a winger.
Despite the success of 1990/91 they had finished the season with Leeds loanee Norman Francis and amateur Henry Sharp on the flanks.
Wilf George was injured and Eddie Riddlesden and Mark Elia had been unavailable since March.
Plan B was to sign Mark Preston from Wigan and negotiations started.
He had been out of favour since dropping a couple of bombs in a rare defeat in the Lancashire Cup at Widnes the previous autumn.
He had played in the Wigan team which had played out a 28-28 draw at Central Park in February when Fax had fielded a virtual first team and John Monie had indicated his availability.
Strangely enough all these talks took place whilst the club were still in the throes of picking a new coach.
It was only when Roger Millward came for an interview on the evening of Spring Bank Holiday Monday that the position was filled.
All this comes to mind because Preston will be a guest of the club during Sunday's home match with Dewsbury.
"Bondy" will of course be more than welcome – the nickname came from Joe Lydon who christened him "Bond" at Wigan from his debonair appearance and the fact that he allegedly used to introduce himself to ladies as, "I'm Preston, Mark Preston!"
His new skipper Paul Harkin added the y!
Preston certainly had a top season in 1991/92 when he scored 27 tries in 32 games.
And you have to remember that he didn't have too much ball because his centre partner Austin scored 33 tries himself!
Some people thought that the travelling might have been too much for the Lytham St Annes based insurance underwriter but he used to set off for training straight from work in his cream sponsored Mercedes with the personalised numberplate (FAX 5) with plenty of Def Leppard coming through the speakers.
All in all he scored 90 tries in 135 matches for Halifax before the fateful 1995 season.
He was reluctant to go fulltime due his career and then got a bad facial injury in a night match at Warrington.
A young Fereti Tuilagi was given his chance and that was that.
A bit of a sad ending to a tremendous five seasons.