WELCOME to my first column in the Evening Press. I hope you find these weekly views on York City Knights, rugby league and occasionally sport in general both interesting and informative.

Losing heavily at Castleford was not the best way to start and obviously I would have liked to write my first column on the back of a good result.

But that wasn't to be and we now need to look forward to getting things back in order.

We know we let ourselves down a bit and that we have to work hard to put it right. We went through the video with the players at training last night and pointed out areas in which we need to improve.

At 12-2 at half-time we were still in the ball game, but then a lot of things went against us, Castleford turned up the pressure and we failed to kick-start our second half. Cas, though, will be capable of doing that to a lot of teams this year as they look to win this Northern Rail Cup and National League One.

That said, they are the sort of team we will be wanting to turn over in the future if the club's long-term goals are to be met.

I've had a good look at the game on video. We competed reasonably well in the first half and at times in the second half, but for some of their tries we were a bit loose.

We're now looking towards the Hunslet game. This sport does not allow you to dwell too much on what happened last week.

We will stay positive and work hard to get the performance back in order for Sunday.

At the end of the day that was our first real competitive game. Trial games serve a purpose but they are just trial games. We were also not at full strength, with the likes of Scott Rhodes, David Bates, Craig Forsyth, Mick Ramsden, Neil Thorman and Chris Spurr ruled out.

You can't panic after just one defeat to a team like Castleford. We will take this result on the chin, me included, and stay positive, keep working on the things that have worked for us and keep improving.

In sport, if you turn your performance round next week then it's happy days again. We've shown in pre-season that when things click we can play attractive football and take teams apart. We realise we've got a bit of work on and we're looking forward to getting it right.

There were several interesting results at the weekend throughout all the leagues, and all in all it bodes well for a very exciting season for rugby league.

A few National League Two clubs turned over NL1 teams in the Northern Rail Cup, yet I'm not sure if it's correct to describe those results as shocks.

Workington, Gateshead and Swinton all beat NL1 sides, while Keighley ran Halifax close and Blackpool Panthers just lost to Oldham. But I've said before that they have recruited well and will be good teams.

These results have shown that the level of our NL2 competition is going to be very high. It's going to be an incredibly tough division and everybody will have to be on the ball to get results.

In Super League, Wakefield won at Bradford for the first time in years, while Salford City Reds took Wigan very close, which is unheard of. Champions Leeds Rhinos also had a very difficult game at Hull, who were under-strength.

It will be tough and exciting right through the competitions, and I reckon our division will arguably be the most intense of them all.

Updated: 09:22 Wednesday, February 16, 2005