MARK Applegarth urged his York Knights team to ‘knock the wind out of Huddersfield Giants’ sails’ after today’s opponents got off the mark last week.
The Knights are looking to get back to winning ways in the Betfred Super League after three defeats on the bounce, which included a 26-14 loss to Wakefield Trinity last Friday.
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On paper, facing bottom of the league Huddersfield looks to be an opportunity for Applegarth’s team – but the Giants stunned the Super League last week.
Having started the season in a winless way, Huddersfield confirmed that they had parted ways with Head Coach Luke Robinson, seeing Andy Kelly shift into an interim role.
He delivered a shock first victory of the season last Saturday, as Kelly’s team forced a first defeat of the campaign onto Wigan after winning 34-16.
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Huddersfield are therefore on a high, and with the Giants looking to put their miserable start to the campaign behind them, Applegarth wants to stop them in their tracks this Saturday at the Accu Stadium (3pm).
“I thought that they were excellent,” Applegarth recognised.
“They fully capitalised on the position that they got into at the start, I thought that Wigan defended really hard in that first 20 minutes.
“Ultimately, they left themselves with too much to do, but you’ve also got to give massive credit to Huddersfield for that.
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“I don’t think it’s any coincidence that they get a couple of key players back and they look a bit more how you’d expect Huddersfield to look.
“They’ll have [Adam] Swift back this week as well, who is really good at getting them on the front foot.
“We’re expecting the best version of Huddersfield, they’ve got the wind in their sails after that first win, a great win as well.
“Our job is to make sure that we knock that wind out of their sails and make sure that we are more the more committed team on Saturday to get the two points.
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“Every single game we go into, we’re going all guns blazing to get those two points.
“I’ll never say any different, we’ve got some excellent players ourselves, you look at Josh Griffin, Paul Vaughan, Paul McShane, Will Dagger, David Nofoaluma, I could carry on going throughout the team.
“We’ve got some talent, so please don’t take my words of credit to Huddersfield as a sign of disrespect to us.
“We’re fully confident in our own ability, and we won’t fear anyone going into any game.
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“We’re fully confident of ourselves as a group, we’ve just got to be ruthless with our own execution and demand more from ourselves to turn these tough losses into good wins.”
Kelly has stepped up from his role as Director of Rugby on an interim basis, and is joined by Assistant Coach and Reserves Head Coach Liam Finn, someone Applegarth has previously worked with.
They had the dream start at Wigan, and when asked why Applegarth felt the Giants had shown an immediate improvement, the Knights Head Coach admitted it was helped by player availability.
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He’s a huge fan of the new coaching team nonetheless, adding: “Andy Kelly is an absolutely great bloke, who I’ve got a hell of a lot of respect for.
“Liam Finn I coached with for a number of years at Wakefield in the youth system, I think we had three or four years together.
“I know Finny’s coaching and I know how intelligent and detailed he is.
“I thought that for how they all spoke after the game, it was no coincidence that you get [Adam] Clune back, [Zac] Woolford back in there and you start getting more settled connections.
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“They looked a bit more gelled as a team.
“They all spoke highly of Robbo [Robinson], but it’s life, people move on and getting some key personnel back definitely helped.”
It’s actually the second time this season that York have travelled to the Accu Stadium, with both the Knights and Huddersfield locking horns in pre-season.
It was York’s only friendly before their competitive schedule begun at Barrow Raiders, and Applegarth’s side did fall to a 22-4 defeat against their West Yorkshire hosts.
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The Knights took lessons from that friendly, and Applegarth is confident that he can expect a similar spine from the Giants to what they operated with in pre-season.
Applegarth told the Press: “I wouldn’t say it’s forgotten about, there were definitely lessons we learned from that.
The Knights lost 22-4 at Huddersfield Giants in pre-season. (Image: Craig Hawkhead Photography)
“We learned a lot about ruck control with these new rules, I think they’ll run the same spine too that they played in pre-season, so we can look at that.
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“Some of the shapes that they wanted to execute, but every game is a new learning opportunity.
“We know where we feel Huddersfield is strong, where they’ve got a bit of vulnerability and likewise, they’ll know exactly that on us.
“We’re more focused on ourselves, you’re probably sick of me saying that every week, but we felt we left five or six tries out there last Friday through our own undoing.
“Knock-on’s in good positions, not squaring people up like we should, not executing how we should, that’s what we’re focusing on at the moment.
“We’re doing all the hard work and are getting into good positions, let’s turn that position into points.”
