YORK Knights head coach Andrew Henderson was left delighted by what he labelled a “brilliant performance” against relegation rivals Keighley Cougars on Sunday.
The Knights were in complete control throughout to cage the Cougars in a 50-10 thrashing in West Yorkshire, with their opponents a world away from the side that claimed the spoils in York on Good Friday.
Gone was the influence of half-back pairing Luke Gale and Dane Chisholm to be replaced by an error-strewn performance from both former Knight Jake Sweeting and Brad Walker, with York capitalising on a myriad of mistakes to run in eight tries - including an 18-minute hat-trick from Jesse Dee and a late brace from full-back Joe Brown.
Such has been Keighley’s downward spiral since that aforementioned 22-10 victory, none of the five points scorers from that day featured as they backed up their heavy derby defeat at Odsal with a similar second-half collapse against the Knights.
But that does not take anything away from York, who weathered the early Cougars barrage, their defence much-improved from a run of six consecutive defeats through June.
“It was a brilliant performance from the team today,” enthused Henderson.
“We knew that there was going to be a response from Keighley off the back of their heavy defeat away at Bradford last week.
“We knew that they’d come out and have a crack from the start and we spoke about how we’d have to weather that early storm through the process that we had in place and that we needed to execute, and I thought that the players did that really, really well.
“I thought that we handled that early energy from Keighley – we managed that very, very well.”
More of a feature of the Knights’ performances of late has been their attacking flair, much improved by the returns from half-back Liam Harris and centre Jesse Dee from a hamstring injury and suspension respectively.
York had two Joe Brown tries chalked off for narrow offside calls as they began to overrun their opponents, but Henderson was keen for his side to not let those decisions affect them.
“As we got our flow into the game, I thought we created them a lot of problems and really opened them up,” he continued.
“I think we were really unfortunate to have two or three tries disallowed – on another day, they’re given.
“We spoke about that at half-time, that we’ve just got to take those calls out of it and don’t get flustered or frustrated about it. I said if we stick to what we’re doing and what we’re doing well, the game will open up and we’ll get the points.
“I’m really, really pleased that the players showed that level of composure, they showed that level of discipline with and without the ball and I thought overall that it was a comprehensive victory and a really strong team performance from the York Knights today.”
Henderson also revealed that despite his personal experience as the Cougars’ Head of Rugby last season, and having acquired the services of prop Brenden Santi from the West Yorkshire club, he was more concerned about his side getting their own house in order than focusing on their opponents.
Despite admitting to targeting Sweeting on Keighley’s left edge, he instead credited much of his side’s success to their strong defence, though was disappointed to have conceded double figures.
“We have certain plays that we try and implement and to ask the relevant questions of the defensive line and for large parts of that game, I think that the team did execute large parts of that game plan really, really well,” he explained.
“But that, once again, was backed off our great defence. I thought that we really restricted Keighley’s go-forward – the only time that they really got into our field position was off the back of penalties or the odd error.
“I thought that we defended our try-line for large parts of that game really, really well. We’re disappointed to concede the 10 points, I’ll tell you that right now. We’ll be looking to fix that up for next week.
“But overall, I can’t be too hard on the playing group. We’ve had a huge month with all the tough fixtures that we’ve had.
“For a young side and a disjointed side to have those three fixtures in seven days and deliver that performance against Halifax in the manner that we did, there was always a concern that that next week after that is where energy levels struggle and the team may not get going and be a little disjointed and clunky, but I don’t think you saw that today, did you?
“I think you saw plenty of good energy from our team and I think that we delivered and performed in a clinical nature.”
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here