MARK Applegarth admits he gave York Knights the hairdryer treatment at half time following a sluggish start to their Play-off Eliminator against Widnes Vikings.

And he concedes nothing less than an '80-minute performance' will do on Sunday if they are to make it to the Betfred Championship Grand Final for the first time.

Despite falling behind to Tom Gilmore's early penalty and then being pegged back by Rhodri Lloyd's right-edge drive on the stroke of half time, the Knights found another gear after the break to run out convincing 27-10 victors against the Vikings.

Their reward is the club's second ever Play-off Semi-Final at League Leaders' Shield winners Wakefield Trinity on Sunday (3pm), pitting Applegarth against his former employers for the second time in as many months.

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Asked just what was said in the dressing room at the break, the head coach laughed: "We spoke about [coming out with a renewed intensity] in a bit more colourful language than I’ll say now!

"They were smelling blood weren't they, they were going to come out for those first 15 minutes. I'm sure in their dressing room they thought they would put the game to bed in terms of the effort stuff.

"But we said it was a good chance to reset for ourselves and do what we can do.

"I'm really glad that we came out and we were the aggressors, but it's a weird one. I'm really happy that we're in that Semi-Final, but I know that we can play a lot better than that.

"We've been putting in 40-minute performances but once we put in an 80-minute performance, that's what we're going to need to see us through to that Final.

"We're just going to focus on ourselves and make sure from next week that we're not giving easy field position to teams that can burn us." 

After having seen Tom Lineham and Joe Law tries cancelled out to leave the scores 10 apiece at the break, the Knights certainly responded.

Nikau Williams sent Lineham over for his second six minutes after the interval before skipper Liam Harris sliced over an opportune drop goal to extend York's lead.

But it was two tries in three minutes shortly after the hour that killed off any hope of a Widnes fightback.

First, Jesse Dee defied the odds to score beneath the posts after picking off a loose pass on halfway before Williams again sent Lineham over into the left corner to complete his hat-trick with 15 minutes remaining.