The odd SKY match perhaps or televised cuptie, even the odd scheduled fixture in London due to ground sharing.

But wasn't it strange that Halifax found themselves trekking to Bridgend last Saturday for a 5.30pm kick-off?

Strange in as much that it had been 12 years to the day, on Saturday March 30 1996, that Fax played their first ever Super League game.

That was against London Broncos at Thrum Hall – with a 5.30pm start time!

That scheduling was experimental as the club tried to find a unique matchday with some clubs opting for Friday night fixtures in the brave new world, some for Sunday afternoons, some for Sunday evenings.

And over the next half a dozen seasons the newly christened Blue Sox would try all those alternatives without really settling on a permanent time.

As it was 4,773 turned up to watch as Colin Morris awarded a late, controversial penalty for ball stealing against Paul Rowley which led to an immediate Broncos try and a 24-22 victory for the visitors.

Halifax should have won but the normally immaculate John Schuster fluffed a couple of kickable goal chances – by his standards – and spent the following week practising which was also pretty remarkable.

"Schuey" reckoned that he had been caught out by the change in matchball – Halifax had used Gilbert for many years but Super League had signed a global deal with Mitre and the Samoan reckoned that the latter had a slightly different shape.

He might have been languid in appearance but Schuster spent hours trying to get used to the new ball.

It wasn't a great start to the campaign and things got a lot worse before they got better.

Another four defeats occurred – to Oldham, Castleford, Warrington and St Helens - before the first point arrived via a draw at Workington on May Day Monday.

Why the late start to the season?

Well in those days there were only 22 league matches – home and away against the other 11 teams in the competition – and the club at the top of the league after the last game were champions.

Halifax's last league match was against Leeds at the end of August and saw them complete a double over the Rhinos.

The only man to appear in all 25 matches was Asa Amone, although Rowley missed just the one and Schuster merely a couple, finishing as top points scorer with 256 from eight tries and 111 goals.

It was certainly a time of change.

Some things didn't change though – at one stage the big kick-off was threatened by players' strike action.

Most of the new full time contracts had been signed the previous year and merely stated that match fees for 1996 would "be advised prior to the start of the season".

Not surprisingly they wanted to know what they were and an agreement was only finally hammered out on the Tuesday before the season started on the Saturday.

Wayne Parker, Mike Umaga and Abi Ekoku were certainly tough negotiators….