DAVE WOODS was not overly appeased by York City Knights’ first win of the season as he described their performance as “ordinary” and slated a third yellow card in three games.

The Knights beat Keighley 28-22 in their last Northern Rail Cup group game thanks to a late try by John Davies.

But they still finished only sixth in pool ‘A’, two points off qualification for the quarter-finals, and Woods, having been angered by the draw at London Skolars last week, was again left disappointed by the display against another Championship One outfit – and one which left out half a dozen first-teamers.

He also bemoaned Ryan Esders’ sin-binning for punching out at Chris Baines when in possession at a play-the-ball.

Woods said: “We haven’t played well. Full credit to Keighley – their line speed was good and they were enthusiastic. But we were just ordinary again.

“They were offside all day and they kept getting up really quick. But we trained really well on Thursday offensively and we didn’t put that into practice. Whether that was because of them being in our faces I don’t know.

“We’ve got big, strong players out wide but we’re not using them. We’ve got work to do.”

Scrum-half Jonny Presley scored two tries and set up two against his former club, but Woods, when asked how his first-choice half-backs performed on the back of a pre-match warning that no one’s shirt was safe, said: “Keighley targeted him and Chris Thorman in defence.

“They put a lot of pressure on both of them but he needed to get a bit deeper in attack. He scored a couple of good tries and when he got deeper he looked good.

“When you’ve got players like Jordan Thompson out wide, you need to get them the ball. They were causing him (Presley) to carry the ball more than we want him to.

“We’re not giving ourselves options outside him. We haven’t got our shape – it’s not the best at the moment.

“We’ve not got our timing right.”

Woods and Esders appeared to have words on the touchline after Esders’ sin-binning, and the second-row – who also picked up two yellow cards in the pre-season friendly against Gateshead – did not reappear on the pitch.

Woods said: “He’s a senior player and his discipline has to be better that that. They scored two tries while he was off.

“We had the ball in hand, and instead of us having it, we lose it and have to defend. We looked all right in defence when we had 13 men, but we didn’t help ourselves.

“Ryan said he was stamped on and that might be the case, but we need to be professional.

“He’s better off making a big tackle on the bloke the next time rather than do that and cost us a man.”

Woods said it was good to get that first win of term, but added: “The blokes are a bit disappointed. We looked lethargic and we need to step things up.”

Ben Jones, Jack Stearman and John Davies all suffered dead legs in the match and will be checked this week.

Matt Garside was due to be a substitute but his troublesome back did not feel right in the warm-up so Steve Lewis took his place on the bench.


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