10:20am Monday 8th March 2010
By Peter Martini
A HOME tie against a beatable team – and then one of rugby league’ big boys.
That was assistant-coach Mick Ramsden’s wish ahead of tonight’s draw for the Carnegie Challenge Cup fourth round after yesterday’s 44-12 win at Gateshead Thunder in the third round.
Clubs in engage Super League enter the competition at this next stage, but Ramsden wants to avoid them at least until round five as his club look to emulate the Knights’ best-ever cup run, which was to the quarter-finals in 2004 when Ramsden was a player.
“A home game is the first thing you look for,” said the club stalwart when asked whom he would prefer to face. “It’d be good if it was against a team we can beat, then we can move onto the bigger fish in the competition.”
The Knights went through thanks to an eight-try victory at their Championship One rivals, who are yet to win this year.
Ramsden again bemoaned his side’s patchy form, but it was a fourth win in five games this season, and set them up nicely for Wednesday’s rearranged Northern Rail Cup group game at home to London Skolars, when another victory would send them to the last eight of that competition.
The only real worry post-match was the elbow injury suffered by key second-row Danny Hill when scoring a second-half try.
Ramsden said: “On the whole I thought we went pretty well, but we were again a bit patchy and didn’t really play as we wanted for the full 80 minutes.
“I thought the first half was good and we wanted to come back out and carry it on into the second half.
“But the next 20 minutes were not really up to the standards we’re setting ourselves. We’re still looking for that 80-minute performance.
“We have to play every game as if we’re playing against the top teams because sooner or later we will come up against a top team who will give us a hiding if we don’t perform.”
Ramsden hinted at a few changes to the line-up on Wednesday, not only in the second row where Hill is now a big doubt.
The club could well look to utilise the depth in their squad, which now includes Castleford dual-registration duo Jordan Thompson and John Davies, neither of whom were involved yesterday.
He said: “It’s a quick turnaround to Wednesday.
“We’ve got an idea of the team we want to put out and we will finalise it tomorrow.
“If we get a result we’re through, which would be great, but we’re still looking for that 80-minute performance.”
Who would you like to see York City Knights draw in round four?
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