"We won’t go easy on York" - boss Keiron Cunningham promises St Helens will be at full tilt

The St Helens boss is poised to hand Langtree Park debuts to 18-year-olds Morgan Knowles and Danny Richardson and fellow teenager Olly Davies, after calling them up from the under-19s alongside Jack Ashworth and Lewis Charnock, who have each played one game for the first team.

All five could feasibly play later in the season for Rochdale against York in League One, given Saints’ dual-reg link-up with the Hornets.

However, Cunningham insists that selection does not suggest complacency on his part - to which end he has picked a powerful spine, presumably with a view to killing the round six tie off early before running the rule over his young guns.

Man mountain Mose Masoe and Kyle Amor are set to start at prop, and, although former Man of Steel hooker James Roby is omitted, Travis Burns will call the shots, with the likes of Tommy Makinson, Josh Jones and Adam Swift providing the threat out wide and Jon Wilkin and Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook the nous inside.

Cunningham also insists his Super League champions will not be taking it easy on James Ford’s young troops.

“I don’t think there’s ever a straightforward tie,” said the Saints legend when asked if progression to round six was all but assured against the lowest ranked team left in the competition.

“York will play as hard as they can. We don’t take anything for granted. If you do, that’s when you get burned. We won’t be doing that.

“The biggest threat is the unknown challenge that York pose. They’re all professional rugby league players and they play good rugby - that’s why they’re at that level.”

Cunningham’s hand has been at least partly forced due to injuries already ruling out Paul Wellens, Jonny Lomax, Atelea Vea, Joe Greenwood, Matty Dawson and now scrum-half Luke Walsh, who is sidelined for a month after ankle surgery.

But he intimated it was a good time to test the depth in his squad.

“You don’t fully know how good a young player is going to be until you play him,” he said of the debutants. “We’ve got a big squad and, with the injuries we’ve sustained over the last few weeks, we have to use it.

“The backbone of the side is still very strong and to have a little bit of youth is good.”

The much-decorated Cunningham - who played the last time York met St Helens in the cup, in 2005, when Saints won 62-0 - admits he knows little of the Knights but has taken tips from Ian Talbot, a member of the Langtree Park backroom staff who coaches Rochdale on secondment via their dual-reg partnership.

“From speaking to Ian Talbot, they have good players,” he said. “We’ll be watching a couple of tapes on certain individuals and, come the game, my players will know more about them.

“Ian’s given me a few names and we’ll work out where we can play and what will be good areas for us to attack.”

This is 38-year-old Cunningham’s first season as head coach after taking over from the departed Nathan Brown.

The Great Britain international, rated one of the greatest hookers ever to play the game, had been on the backroom staff since hanging up his boots in 2010 at the end of a trophy-laden 17-year one-club career comprising five Super League crowns, two World Club Challenge successes and seven Challenge Cups.

In total, he made 495 appearances for his home-town club and even has a statue in his honour outside their Langtree Park home.

Asked if he wanted to top last season’s title by doing the double in his maiden season at the helm, he said: “I’m not going to say that. We’ll try to do as well as we can in each competition.

“We want to compete for every one of the available trophies. There’s none more prestigious than the Challenge Cup.

“Right now that’s our priority as it’s our next game.”

Saints go into the game as 3-1 favourites to lift the cup. York are rated 2,500-1 at best.

Said Cunningham: “I never pay any heed to that - I’m not a gambling man.

“I hope the bookmakers are right, but there are quite a few more games to be played before any trophies are handed out.”