“WOULD we need an extra game in the league calendar? No, but I love the concept of it.”

That’s the view of York Knights head coach Andrew Henderson ahead of this weekend’s Betfred Championship Summer Bash at the LNER Community Stadium.

All 14 of the competition’s teams will take to the field across both tomorrow and Sunday, alongside the York Valkyrie, who will hope to continue their unbeaten start to the season against Warrington Wolves.

While Henderson concedes that another fixture does not help the strain placed on his already injury-hit side, the idea of Summer Bash and the “festival atmosphere” that it creates is a concept that he is very much in favour of.

“It’s one of those,” he told The Press. “It’s an extra game.

“Ideally I think probably the less games you have as part-time players the better. It’s quite a long season.

“I was looking at the fixtures and we, potentially, at the end of the season, if we have a really good run at the back end and we keep progressing in all these cup competitions, we can play close to 36 to 38 games this year, including your friendlies.

“That’s a big, big load for semi-professional players.

“With that said, we’ve had a bit of a depleted squad as well. So it’s another game that we’ve got.

“Would we need an extra game in the league calendar? No, but I love the concept of it.”

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For Henderson, Summer Bash is about bringing rugby to a stadium that fans have likely not visited often - though he is happy that York has been chosen to host this year’s event and hopes that fans explore what the city has to offer.

“I like the idea of creating an opportunity for all the fans from all the clubs to be there over one weekend - at a destination,” he said.

“ I think in an ideal world, you’d probably have held it at a venue where people haven’t experienced before.

“I think that’s the whole part of it, too, it’s going somewhere different that obviously can accommodate all the different fans from different clubs coming there.

“Obviously for whatever reason, certain facilities weren’t available. So we’ve put our hand up to to offer that opportunity and I’m grateful that we have got the opportunity to host.

“York is such a a wonderful city and a great destination for people to come and visit and spend the weekend.

“I really hope that the people who come here really maximise the weekend.

“I hope they get out in the city and experience the history and what it has to offer, as well as taking in a wonderful weekend of rugby league action.

“There’s plenty of positives for it being here at York this year.”

He continued: “I like the concept of it, but would I say we need the amount of games? In the calendar of part-time players, probably not.

“But I like the concept of creating an opportunity for everybody to come together and have that kind of festival and carnival atmosphere which I do feel it does bring.

“It does create that that sort of vibe, which is great.”