MARK Applegarth hopes to see York Knights come out all guns blazing as they look for a response from last weekend’s implosion at Halifax against basement side Dewsbury Rams this afternoon (3pm).

Halifax had been completely starved of possession as the Knights raced out of the blocks at The Shay but recovered from an eight-point deficit and led 22-14 at the break before pulling away during the second half to run out comfortable 38-18 victors.

York’s defence was at times as woeful as their discipline in West Yorkshire, with James Woodburn-Hall rounding almost half of their squad to score the Panthers’ opener and a tip-tackle, high tackles and ball spills all contributing to further tries for the hosts.

“Ultimately, they wanted it more than us on the day, which disappointed us,” Applegarth reflected. “I know that hurt everyone, including myself.

“We need to make sure that our standards are better – it’s as simple as that. We can’t expect to get anything than what we got if we don’t play from minute one to 80. 

“Nobody in this league is just going to roll over and let you do what you want, even if you do have a dominant first 15 minutes.

“It’s the first time that we’ve been so dominant and not closed it out, but the main thing is that as a group, we learn the lesson from it.

“The beauty of being in the season is that you get seven days to rectify it. What we don’t want to do is compound a loss and leave ourselves with a mountain to climb.

“We want a big response on Sunday, and whoever gets those shirts come Sunday has a big responsibility to make sure that we come out all guns blazing to rectify it all.” 

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Applegarth’s tenure will come full circle this weekend, with his arrival back at the Knights coinciding with the reverse fixture against the Rams at the FLAIR Stadium back in June.

A strong defensive focus brought with it a first clean sheet of the season against Dewsbury, but the 38 points shipped last week was York’s third highest of the campaign behind 50-6 and 40-10 defeats to champions-elect Wakefield Trinity – and their most since Applegarth was appointed to the top job.

Sam Cook is ruled out with a hamstring injury likely to keep him sidelined for the remainder of the campaign, but the head coach admits more changes are to be expected upon their return to the LNER Community Stadium today.

He explained: “It’s one of them. As much as you want to settle the side, there’s two things to it – injury and performance. People keep the shirt if you’re playing well.

“But if you’ve had 38 points on you, it’s fair to say that it’s not the standard that we want to achieve and you can expect a change or two off the back of that.

“It’s nothing personal with anyone in particular, but you can’t accept 38 points as a scoreline put on you, regardless of who you’re playing.

“We want to be known as a gritty team and pride ourselves on our defence. Leaking 38 points is definitely not any of those characteristics.”