‘Rusty’ Knights stars have plenty of work to do (From York Press)

‘Rusty’ Knights stars have plenty of work to do

12:00pm Monday 23rd January 2012 in Knights RL By Peter Martini, peter.martini@thepress.co.uk

Disappointed player-boss Chris Thorman reckoned the main positive of York City Knights’ defeat to a young Hull side was the fact they only lost by two points after such a disjointed display.

The fact it was still pre-season, with time to right wrongs before the campaign starts, was another plus-point of Saturday’s 32-30 Huntington Stadium loss.

Notable new signing Paul King was the sponsors’ man of the match on his Knights bow against his former club, while Tommy Haughey also scored a try in his first appearance since his off-season arrival from Hunslet.

But Thorman – who also played for the first time this year, forming a new half-back partnership with marquee signing Jordan Tansey, who was making his first start as part of arguably the Knights’ strongest line-up of pre-season so far – admitted they were “rusty” with “plenty of work to do”.

The Knights had led 18-16 after an even first half but Hull, featuring an under-20s side barring new scrum-half Jamie Ellis, the 2011 Championship Player of the Year with Leigh, were the better side after the break.

One-time Hull stand-off Thorman said: “We fell off too many one-on-one tackles, which doesn’t come down to a system or process but rather attitude and looking after your own game. Too many people fell off tackles and off the back of that nothing really went as planned.

“We didn’t build early pressure. We still created opportunities but forced it a bit too much.

“I’m not going to be too negative but we’ve plenty to do this week.

“We put ourselves under too much pressure.

“Defensively I didn’t think we made too many good reads, and our first contacts weren’t great – they often got away from us. They made us work harder then we should have done.

“But it’s early days. The likes of myself, Paul King, Tommy Haughey – it was our first game. It was Jordan Tansey’s first start. We haven’t worked combinations too much in games yet.

“But we’ve got a lot of talented players.

“This sort of stuff happens in pre-season – I’d rather it happen now than in ten or 15 weeks. It’s a friendly and we’ve got to try to get as much out of them as possible.”

Asked about the positives, Thorman said: “We’ve only lost by two points. We were still in the game. I was quite impressed by Hull. I knew they were going to be good and they certainly were. They’ve got some good kids.

“We’ve got another game next week (against Castleford in Sunday’s annual Paul Higgins Memorial match). We’ll be all right.”

As for veteran former Super League prop King, Thorman said: “Paul King and Tommy Haughey were actually two of the ones guilty of forcing the pass a bit. I wanted to build pressure early in the game. But they played well.

“We know Paul King offers us something else in the front row. Everyone knows his ball skill. He’s capable of putting people through holes and he will make the ball available.

“But we need to be conscious of when to do it and where we do it on the field.

“We’re only going to improve.”