YORK Knights boss Andrew Henderson is under no false illusions of the threat that Toulouse Olympique will pose when the sides meet at the LNER Community Stadium this afternoon (3pm).

Both teams will be keen to bounce back from defeats on the opening day of the Betfred Championship season - with the French side beaten 24-22 by Sheffield Eagles and the Knights 36-20 at newly-promoted Doncaster.

Sylvain Houles’ charges prevailed in both of the sides’ meetings last season, the most recent of which resulted in an 18-14 thriller at the city’s stadium last August.

And with Toulouse coming within a whisker of promotion to the Betfred Super League last season, Henderson is well versed in the threat that his side will face against their full-time opponents this weekend.

“It’s never an easy game,” he warned. 
“They’re a good side. They were last year’s Grand Finalists for a reason.

“They’ve got a number of quality players, and quality Super League players at that. I know that they still operate full time, which gives them a slight added advantage being in that position which is great for them.

“They’ve retained a number of the personnel that were with them last year, so we’re familiar with a number of their players there.

“There’s one or two new additions to their squad, but we’re familiar with how they attack and how they defend so hopefully we’ll have the answers to not only challenge them, but unlock them as well.

“They’re a quality side and we understand that it will be a tough assignment on Sunday, there’s no doubt about it.

“But ultimately, we just need to make sure that we’re showing a bit more intent and purpose in our actions on Sunday and I want to see us competing a lot better than we did two weeks ago.

“We’re just focusing on what we can control, and if we can get back to delivering the standards that we set here within this team and in this group, I’m confident that we will deliver a good performance and that will give us something to build on going forward.”

Henderson has however been pleased by his side’s preparation ahead of the tie as they look to right the wrongs of their opening day defeat.

“We addressed things on the Tuesday after the game,” he told The Press.

“There were some honest conversations in there - we talked through it, had a look at it and asked some questions of ourselves.

“The response off the back of that has been really positive, they’ve all got stuck in.

“We’ve been able to get a little more of a workload into them having not had a game last weekend, and we’ve done one or two things a little bit differently too, which is great.

“The response from the players last week was great, and so far coming into it this week, there’s been a really good energy around the place.

“I can tell that they want to right the wrongs.”