Nick Wright previews this weekend's clash between York City Knights and Hull FC
Alex Reid looks at whether the once ever-present appearance of English clubs in the later stages of the Champions League is set to become a thing of the past
Craig Dobson looks at QPR's decision to sack Neil Warnock and replace him with Mark Hughes
James Tompkinson reviews an excellent pre-season victory for the York City Knights against Yorkshire rivals Leeds Rhinos
Although the first team did not perform to their full potential, captain Paul Goodall said: “It’s obviously good to start with a win, even if there are plenty of areas for us to be working on.”
With the first scrum going backwards, York forwards knew they were in for a hard day, and so it proved. Huddersfield’s game plan was based around keeping the ball tight and sending their big runners around the fringes, which York defended resolutely. It was clear though that York were by far the fitter pack and they began to beat Huddersfield to the breakdown. Turnover ball handed York opportunities and the York backs soon discovered that they had the beating of Huddersfield, finally exploiting it after 20 minutes. Clean line-out ball fed fly-half Tom Benbow sent full-back James Wilson through the middle and over the gain line. Fast ruck ball ended up in Nick Mason’s hands who went around his opposite number to score in the corner, with Warwick Van der Burrows adding the extras.
Unfortunately, good line out and scrum play by Huddersfield left York unnecessarily heaping pressure on themselves, and they left it till the end of the second-half to make their dominance count. Finally, some good continuity and ball securing led to the ball reaching James Wilson in the ten-slot, who broke through three tackles and side-stepped the full back to score.
York then made the worst possible start to the second-half. Taking clean kick-off ball, the Huddersfield 8 went in the side without being penalised, picked up and brushed aside two York tackles to score. With memories of last year's performance and the throwing away of a fourteen point lead, York began to get tense and opportunities that should have put the game beyond doubt didn’t go to hand. The York backs kept breaking the gain line, but silly errors meant that Huddersfield weren’t finished off.
Finally, Tom Benbow made another probing run and got one-on-one with the full-back, with support provided by wing Lionel Owusu and James Wilson, and he sent Wilson over in the corner for him to score his second of the game. York failed to convert, but made up for it a few minutes later when Seb Broster scored a long-range penalty after Huddersfield had put hands in the ruck.
With minutes to go, York will have been disappointed to have conceded a soft try after defending well throughout. Having been sucked into a ruck, York failed to match Huddersfield numbers out wide and a couple of missed tackles led to the Huddersfield winger scoring under the posts.
President Chris Carrington said: “The first team deserved to win, but will really need to improve in order to compete with the likes of Leeds and Durham.”
The second team, with a new team consisting of a large selection of freshers, gelled quickly, and a fitter York pack allowed the backs to dominate. Captain for the day Danny Stacey said: “So often the second team’s promotion chances have been hit by first week defeats due to the unfamiliarity of a new team. This is a team that should really be looking to finally get out of this league and with more performances like this one it has to be a strong possibility.”
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